I am POA for my dad. He has not been diagnosed with any memory or cognitive issues as of yet. We have an appointment in two months to see a neurologist with a referral from his GP. After much cajoling my dad gave me his keys. He now says that he gave them under duress and that he could, but won’t, sue me to get them back. I just want him to wait until he is evaluated before returning to driving. He had not driven in a few months due to recovering from pneumonia and has not had any driving accidents. But, he has been experiencing more than what I think is normal age related forgetfulness, confusion, hallucinations, and delusions. He’s becoming paranoid thinking that the neurologist wants to “put him away” whether that be a nursing home, insane asylum, or jail- it varies even within a conversation. Yesterday he called my aunt 50 times- I have access to his call log. Some days are better than others and he can be very convincing to people who don’t spend a lot of time with him. The constant circular discussions, arguments, haranguing are about more than I can take and it’s not even been a week since I took the keys. So I guess my questions are: in Texas am I legally responsible for his actions if he drives? Can I legally withhold his keys without a diagnosis? I’m sure more questions will crop up, but he brought up legal action and I thought I’d ask.
I look at her and say-mom, would you like me to drive you to a lawyers office? :)
She was diagnosed 19 months ago when her doctor administered the SLUMs test. She failed horribly. She has also seen a neurologist who agreed with her PCP. And, she has also had a 3 hour medical driver assessment, which she did not come close to passing. My mom also doesn't remember making a trust that gives my and I both medical and financial POA. And the cherry on the top-the trust gives us guardianship of her because she is deemed incapacitated by two written letters from her doctors. So if my mom wants to see a lawyer, I will happily drive her to one, but I always tell her-it will not turn out the way she wants it to.
Keep the keys, disable the car with a note under the hood stating your father is not medically cleared to drive. If they have any questions or concerns to call you.
You are dealing with POA for an uncooperative senior. It doesn't get worse than that. No matter the diagnosis this will pretty much be a nightmare start to finish. I am so sorry, but I think you already know that.
Keep now a CAREFUL detailed diary with all proof such as phone logs and etc. so that if you need temporary guardianship for placement you have proof of what's happening here. Your dad is out of control and legalities where it comes to trying to keep him and others safe until he is placed, are kind of secondary. I have a feeling the cops will side with you, and any call to them may get Dad safely transferred to ER, quicker diagnosis and placement.
Give him time to be angry but don’t give him the keys back.
IF you disable his car, you could give him back the keys. Then when he sees it's not working, have it towed to the shop. And it just never comes back. As long as you can get the shop to go along with this and not tell him anything.
Many folks with dementia are good at talking to other people and sound rather lucid at times. Showtiming! But you know the truth from spending time with him. Hopefully he can get into the neuro early and get his diagnosis.
Good luck.
I'm only posting this as something you should consider doing so that there is more "proof" that you were in the process of stopping an unsafe driver. If he calls you and is delusional, hallucinating or on a paranoid rant, try to record it. But I do not think you can be held liable if he somehow gets into any vehicle and causes a problem.
I recommend you work through your Dad's primary doctor first because he may get in for an appointment sooner. You don't need a neurologist to give someone the "draw a clock face with numbers" test or "remember 3 words after 10 minutes" test or a MOCA test. He will get a diagnosis, plus the primary can also prescribe meds for his anxiety and agitation.
I went through my 95-yr old Mom's medical portal to discretely request cognitive and memory testing so that the diagnosis could be put in on clinic letterhead and signed so that I could begin legally acting as her PoA. The doc was happy to do this.
Then my Mom's primary doc wrote an order for her to do a virtual driving assessment through their OT dept. My Mom was totally against it and insisted she was a good driver. They gave her both a MOCA test and physical reaction test and she was deemed a "high risk" driver. They broke the news to her, not me. This went into her chart. Her primary doc was required to report it to the Dept of Public Safety and who then cancelled her license.
Another option is if he becomes delusional or hallucinating you call 911 and tell them he may have a UTI or sepsis from his recent pneumonia and that he is won't allow you to take him to the doctor. An ER doc won't diagnose someone with dementia but he may in fact have one of these problems. You may be able to make the case that he is an "unsafe discharge" so that he isn't immediately released back to his home. If this happens it may be possible for his primary (or a primary) to then diagnose him.
Once you get a diagnosis for your Dad, and after you remove his keys and car permanently... then what? Is he able to live on his own while being delusional, paranoid and hallucinating? It doesn't sound like it. From the ER he may be able to be transitioned directly into a facility.
And anyone with dementia should have their keys taken away and never given back, as it is no different than someone driving drunk or high on drugs.
Your dads brain is now broken and will NEVER get better, only worse, so this is just one of many tough decisions that you're going to have to make on his behalf.
You have every right as POA to do what needs to be done to protect not only your dad, but also all the innocent people on the roadways in the great state of Texas, who could otherwise get killed or severely injured due to your dads lack of judgement while behind the wheel.
So DO NOT under any circumstances give the keys back to your dad, and if you have to, remove his car from his property so he doesn't have to see it everyday.
This is not going to get any easier here on out, so I wish you well going forward.
And please get your head out of the sand. Your dad now has dementia and there's no turning back.
Then if he calls the cops you can honestly tell them you didn't take them, nor do you have them.
I did call the sheriff in his county and ask the question - can we legally take his guns away - and basically what they told me didn't change our minds lol. They said that as long as he is considered competent - you can't take them away LEGALLY - and he could indeed call the police and they would come out and make us give them back. Even with the information she said that there was no LEGAL reason they could back up - and even said that unfortunately THEIR hands were tied unless something bad happened.
She was stressing certain words very carefully - so what I got from it was that we would have to be strategic, because while there was nothing LEGALLY allowing us to take them away - all fingers would end up pointing to us if he did hurt someone because we didn't take them away (catch-22 - danged if you do, danged if you don't).
We decided that dealing with his anger was far, far easier than knowing he had hurt someone and we had the power to stop him.
So if he is competent - no you probably LEGALLY can't hold the keys. But morally - heck yeah if you have concerns about his ability to drive safely - you find whatever way you need to in order to make that happen. Therapeutic lies, misdirection or redirection, whatever is necessary . You HAVE the keys. Don't give them back.
Stall in whatever way necessary until he moves on to something else.
As far as FIL - he eventually forgot about the guns - it would rear its ugly head every once in a while - but he never actually called the police. We employed a little therapeutic lie on that one - that they would require him to take another conceal carry firearms training class and prove he was capable of handling the guy safely. While not true - he didn't know that. And while he argued with us that he could outshoot anyone - deep down he knew. We simply put the guns in places we knew he wasn't able to get to - and the ammunition in totally separate places he couldn't get to. That way - if he did get a wild hair and decide to call the police - the guns were still in the house -we hadn't removed them from his possession technically. He just couldn't get to them.
Perhaps you can do the same with the keys - keep them somewhere he can't get to. Technically they are still on the property. But whatever you do - don't give him those keys back if it is unsafe.
Blaming it on the GP is the stall tactic for now .
You will never be giving him the keys back . He obviously has dementia . At some point before the neurologist appointment you will
also take the car “ to be serviced” and never return it .
Dad should never drive again . After you go to the neurologist , if Dad starts up , you say , “ The doctor said no more driving “.
If Dad calls the police tell them , he can’t drive anymore per the doctor . You have POA papers to show them , I doubt they would do anything .
If Dad lives alone , that will need to change , he needs supervision . Also take any guns he has .