Close calls in traffic. Taking hours for what should have been a short trip to the grocery store. Dents and dings on the car. A side mirror sheared off. Phone calls asking for directions home.
A loss of driving abilities often serves as a red flag to family members that a loved one may be struggling with Alzheimer’s Disease or other forms of dementia. But convincing loved ones to let others do the driving can present formidable challenges.
“We don’t like to think about it, but it can be a matter of life or death for the driver, and for anyone else who might be injured,” said Alice Keane, a retired educator and volunteer for the Alzheimer’s Association.
Keane helps caregivers from Chicago’s South Side and surrounding suburbs explore these and other difficult situations. A year and a half ago, the resident of Smith Village in Chicago’s Morgan Park neighborhood began facilitating an Alzheimer’s Association caregiver support group with fellow Alzheimer’s Association volunteer Bridget Murphy, who also is Smith Village’s life enrichment director.
The group meets at the senior community at 6:30 p.m. the third Tuesday of each month in a conference room just off the main lobby at 2320 W. 113th Place.
In 2020, Keane’s husband, former 28th District state Rep. Jim Keane, died of COVID-19 and complications related to advanced Alzheimer’s Disease. He’d also taught at Leo High School and founded the local 1700 chapter of the American Federation of Teachers. While helping him, Keane appreciated the support of an Alzheimer’s Association caregivers group in Arizona where the couple owned a vacation home.
“The purpose of the support group is support — allowing people to be free to express their frustrations and talk about things that are puzzling them,” Keane said. “It’s about listening, sharing advice, and supporting each other. It’s what I needed when I was going through this with Jim.”
After Jim’s death, and with time on her hands during the pandemic, Keane decided to help others by signing up with the Alzheimer’s Association as a volunteer and trained to facilitate caregiver support group discussions. A volunteer for the Illinois chapter — also a caretaker — was her mentor.
Keane said her experiences as a caregiver enable her to empathize with those seeing their ones lose their brilliance and mental capabilities.
Phyllis Tucker attends the caregiver support group. She and her husband, Roosevelt Tucker Jr., both live at Smith Village, He graduated from New York University and managed a successful career as an insurance claims adjuster.
“He would always do work around the house, all kinds of projects,” Tucker said. “He’d get up on our steep pitched roof. He couldn’t do those things anymore.”
Caregiver Fran Blake, also a Smith Village resident, describes his wife as having had amazing talents as well. The mother of six, Peggy Blake organized school carnivals, a teen social club and ski trips for students at St. Cajetan Catholic Elementary School. After her children were grown, she worked for local politicians.
For all three caretakers, the gravity of what was happening to their loved ones became apparent as their driving skills eroded.
Tucker, a retired registered nurse, noticed that her husband started getting lost while driving. “We’d have to make him stay where he was and go get him,” she said. “During a cold spell, he left the car running until it ran out of gas.”
The mental lapse resulted in severe damage to the car. Tucker told her husband the cost of the repairs and convinced him to let the car go. With one car remaining in the household, she took over the driving.
Blake and other family members noticed his wife Peggy repeating herself. Not long after, when the couple was still living in Palos Heights, he said, “She called me asking, ‘How do I get to Harlem Avenue?’ And this was something she’d done many times before.”
Blake intervened by hiding the keys. “It didn’t stop her desire to drive,” he said. “She still wanted to drive, but I would tell her the keys were lost and I could drive her.” He also reminded her of her struggles with double vision as a reason not to drive.
Blake wanted proof to convince his wife to give up on driving, so he consulted with her doctor who agreed she posed a risk to herself and others. The physician filled out a form provided by the Illinois Secretary of State to revoke her driver’s license.
He showed her the letter from the state. “If she could pass a driving test and written exam, her license would be reinstated,” Blake said. “For a while, she still wanted to take the test, but eventually forgot about it.”
Tucker and Blake appealed to their spouses’ sense of responsibility to convince them to stop driving, which aligns with suggestions offered by the Alzheimer’s Association.
Keane often suggests consulting the Alzheimer’s Association website for tips on dealing with driving and other challenges, including caretaker self-care. She too followed the association’s suggestion to have a conversation with loved ones about giving up driving.
As she tells it, Jim Keane put up little resistance. “He was aware of his mother’s struggles with dementia later in life, so he was more resigned to it,” she said.
Regardless of what stage of disease their loved ones were contending with, caregivers said attending the caregiver support at Smith Village has helped.
“It’s a real comfort to be able to talk with people who share the same concerns,” Blake said. “When I first came here, I was concerned about seeing that my wife was properly medicated. It helped to talk about different medications.”
Tucker needed time to process the reality of her husband’s illness but eventually realized that sharing with other caretakers was beneficial. “Most of the things I understood, but I understood it more hearing how other people thought about it and how they problem solved,” she said.
Alzheimer’s Association caregiver support groups can be found across the country. They often take place in libraries and public settings.
Besides Smith Village residents who attend the meetings, about 15 other caregivers come to the sessions. The next meeting of the support group at Smith Village is 6:30 p.m. June 18.
More resources and tips for caregivers, including how to address driving issues are at https://www.alz.org/help-support/caregiving/safety/dementia-driving.
Susan DeGrane is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
