Observance: Leaving elderly in cars.

JoAnn,

Your daughter posted a very good reminder to everyone that it truly isn’t safe to leave an elder alone in a car.

I hope people will take her message seriously. Something can happen in just a moment.

Fawnby, I'm with you.

So very sad about your friend & family. Just awful.

I've told before of these local incidents.

Elderly woman, dementia, wandered out at night (while family slept), hit by car on main road. Son had never wanted to 'put Mother in a home', yet she died of her injuries after many weeks in hospital, then a NH.

Elderly Grandfather, dementia, wandered off with baby in pram when Grandmother took eyes off for a moment to pay a in shop.

Luckily found safely by Police. Grandfather moved into care immediately.

I’m caring for my husband, so this is personal to me. If he got to the point where he wasn’t safe at home, which means that he could be setting the house on fire while we’re both in it, would it be better to keep him at home or let him live at a skilled nursing facility where he could die peacefully in bed? With me there to enjoy our last days together?

Burning to death is a particularly painful way to die. My friend died that way when an electrical wire in the wall ignited his home. His dogs and son died too. The son tried to rescue him. Both charred bodies were found in the ruins, unrecognizable.

My sister-in-law who has dementia nearly set her house on fire in a stove incident. She’s now in memory care.

I am for dying comfortably, not in a fire or with a car hitting me when I suddenly escaped from my home and got lost. So obviously I don’t agree with AndSoItGoes about keeping dementia patients home at all cost.

Great advice, Jo! Years ago, I told my wife to "wait right here" while I dropped a library book off. After about 2 minutes, I returned to an empty car. It took the local police and fire dept to find her about 1 1/2 miles away. When the police took me to where she was, I found her sitting inside a small building at a golf driving range with 2 medics shooting the breeze and enjoying a Coke with them- totally oblivious of what happened. The medics asked they should examine her and I said "Thanks, but no." Just another frightening moment as a caregiver.

I get what you're saying AndSoItGoes, for the most part caregivers are coping the best they can with the resources they have available. The only choices for some people may be leaving the care recipient home alone, trying to shop with them in the store or leaving them in the car, and all of them have their pitfalls.

I appreciate tips like this one--things that might not have been on one's radar as potential problems until pointed out.

So this next note is not about the OP's generous and helpful post, please understand.

I'm sort of growing weary of people telling me how I can best keep mom safe. She is old and frail and by definition not safe. I'm especially tired of receiving these tips from family members who are not themselves dealing with daily caregiving. I also don't much care for the chidings of doctors/nurses (not OP's daughter! others I'm thinking of here) who in the past have suggested mom should be in skilled nursing since not sufficiently "safe" at home. Skilled nursing (in my area/observation) is a fate worse than death. "Safety" in this context represents the grave danger of having one's life prolonged in an institutional setting.