I had the opportunity to speak with Melanie Henry, who specializes in driver rehabilitation and cognitive driving assessments for older adults. If you have aging loved ones or work with older adults, this episode is an invaluable listen.

Key Takeaways:

• Recognizing Warning Signs Matters: Subtle changes—like increased irritability while driving, new dents or scrapes, or changes in social driving habits—could signal it’s time to reassess driving abilities.
• Compassionate Conversations Are Key: When approaching this sensitive topic, coming from a place of care, preparation, and concrete examples (like ride-alongs) makes all the difference. Avoid assumptions based merely on age.
• Assessment & Independence: Tools now exist to objectively assess driving safety, combining cognitive and on-road evaluations. Many older adults remain safe drivers, and having a clear, unbiased assessment can provide much-needed peace of mind for everyone involved.

This conversation is never easy, but with the right information and a compassionate approach, we can prioritize safety while honoring independence.

Listen to the episode, share it with those who may need it, and let’s keep our roads—and our loved ones—safe.

Moments

00:00 Driving Instructor and Rehab Professional

03:49 Cognitive Driving Assessment Technology

07:45 Driving Safety with Cognitive Decline

10:28 "Driver Observation and Safety Chat"

16:47 Driving Retirement Transition Struggles

18:19 Dementia, Family Decisions, and Driving

23:57 Dementia, Driving Concerns, Awareness

24:55 Cognitive Impairment & Collision Risks

28:39 "Support with Love and Strategy"

Email me, Lisa Stockdale, anytime at aginginfullbloom@gmail.com

Aging in Full Bloom with Lisa Stockdale is sponsored by HomeCaire. We believe every patient should get the personalized care they need, in the way they want it. Every caregiver should feel supported, valued, and motivated. We see each person as their own entity, with unique needs, desires, and skills. Our goal is to best support our family as they reach new milestones.

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Copyright 2026 Lisa Stockdale

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Thanks for listening to Aging in Full Bloom with Lisa Stockdale, sponsored by HomeCaire of Ohio. We added an "i" to care because we care about the individual. That includes the individual caregiver and the individual client. From each caregiver's caseload to every client's care plan, we understand that individual preferences and priorities matter. People matter; we haven't lost sight of that here at HomeCaire of Ohio. If you or someone you know needs personal care at home, call 419-458-3000 to learn.

Listeners, thank you for joining Aging in Full Bloom with Lisa Stackdale. I'm your host, Lisa, and today we have a very important topic that we have never broached before. I'm not sure why, but anyway, it's time to talk about it. The topic is how do you know when it's time to stop driving as an older adult and as an adult child, how do you have that conversation if you think it might be time for your parent or your loved one to. To stop driving? And I have a special guest on the phone with me, Melanie Henry, who is going to help us understand the ins and the outs of this. Hello, Melanie, good morning. Hello, good morning. And Melanie, before we got on she was saying it's chilly where she is.

She's in California, it's about 47 degrees. And I said, yeah, we're in Ohio, it's 17 degrees. But it's all relative. Right. One thing that may not be relative is when your driving skills start fading or changing. And Melanie is an expert topic on this subject. I know you have given many talks to different organizations and different conferences to help people understand the ins and the outs, all of this. What is your, I guess your title? Are you a driving instructor? How did you come to be an expert in this area?

Oh, okay, thank you. I am a driving instructor and I own a driving school here in the East Bay San Francisco area. Okay. And I'm a driver rehabilitation professional. And how this kind of all came about, it was a side gig initially being a driving instructor which I really enjoyed teaching new beginner drivers. And then I moved into like a full time role where I was coordinating rides for senior aged residents in our area. And there was a real disconnect between many of them needing a lot of support to get to their medical appointments and many of them were still driving. And in the parking lot there was evidence of all sorts of issues because we were co located with a senior center and there were people that were leaving their car running while they were inside playing bingo with the doors open, the engine running, lots of little fender benders.

And I was already in the driving space at that point and thought, my goodness, who is assessing these older drivers and advocating for them? But also the families were calling and were pretty concerned about what was going on. So I did some research and I found out about this technology out of Canada and I decided to build an assessment center here in the Bay Area that families and drivers and physicians can, you know, give me a call and drivers can self refer, families can call on behalf of mom or dad and they can come on in and have a cognitive driving assessment.

And is that the technology in Canada? Is it some. Is it some type of like machine where you drive virtually or something? What, what is the technology?

Yeah, so the company that licenses the technology to me started out of back about 30 years ago, neurologists needed a driving assessment for his patients and nothing existed. So he partnered with the university.

Up in Canada some 30 years ago and they had eight years of research, thousands of subjects that came through the program and they have developed an in office and an on road evaluation. And so the in office is measuring the interaction of cognitive abilities specifically to driving. And then the person goes out in our evaluator vehicle and I have an iPad and I'm looking for what kind of driving errors is somebody making that is consistent with cognitive decline or cognitive impairment happening? So the two results are combined to give a composite driver risk score. So it's accurate, it's fair, it's not based on somebody's age alone. Because what I find is a lot of families will decide that, you know, my mum is 85, she shouldn't be driving anymore. Certainly the risk goes up at that point in terms of the frailty of the human body if somebody is involved in a collision, but they're not necessarily at more risk just because they're 85. So, yeah, it's good technology because it is independent and they definitely have this assessment technology in other states. I can certainly look and see who you've got in Ohio.

Well, interestingly enough, most of our listeners are not in Ohio. It's pretty well widespread all over the country.

So I'm fantastic.

Yeah. Wherever you are.

You'Re listening to this, you're getting an idea of what to look for in your area if you need this kind of help. So what kinds of, like, key indicators would you be looking for to understand cognitive decline associated with driving? What kinds of mistakes might be that the drivers might be making?

Yeah, and I'll, I'll. Thank you, Lisa. I'll talk about this from an adult child or from a spouse perspective or even from the driver's perspective. So we know that as a population group, most older drivers will start to restrict their own driving when they're starting to see changes. So some of the things that drivers really need to be aware of is, you know, how are they feeling about their own confidence when they're out on the road? Are they getting agitated, irritable, coming back, saying, you know, I can't believe how many people were honking the horn today, that's kind of a red flag. Are you noticing with maybe a parent that, you know, their friendship group has changed in that, you know, maybe your parent used to be the one that would drive and pick up everybody to go to bingo, and now other people are offering to drive. So nobody's kind of having that conversation. But you're noticing that the driving arrangement is changing.

One of, one of the easy things, you know, there's a whole lot of warning signs, and I'm happy to share those resources with you for your group. The. One of the main. One of the really easy ways to look at this too is.

Can a person step up onto the curb leading with their right foot and then step back down off the curb using their right foot first? And that gives you some indication of how well they'll be able to manage moving from the brake to the gas pedal in the vehicle. Because we need to have.

That's amazing.

Yeah, we need to have that good strength there.

Has there been like a recent hospital admission? Has somebody not driven in a few months? Have. There's research that says there's a correlation between an increase in risk in terms of if somebody has had two or more falls in the last 12 months. Obviously, if there's been a diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment or one of the other types of. Or a type of dementia, which. Mild cognitive impairment does not meet that category for dementia, but it can signal that there are starting to be changes. But in saying that I have many clients who have mild cognitive impairment, but they're still within a safe parameter to drive, and same with drivers that have Alzheimer's and some of the other types of dementia, a lot of drivers are still safe to drive right up until the middle stages of that disease.

If you notice that you know your loved one or yourself that you're starting to get lost when you go to the store. What we often find with drivers with mild cognitive impairment is they'll. They may forget the destination or the reason why they wanted to go there, and they'll try to remember where they were going, and they'll often try and cover up the mistake or ask for help. Their attention span's becoming weakened.

Certainly pedal error, dents and scrapes on the vehicle, on the mailbox, on the garage, with no explanation or maybe kind of being a little dismissive about that. If you notice somebody's, you know, starting to drift in the lane or maybe they're moving towards the center line or more towards the curb, having more trouble with left hand turns, that's a really big thing for drivers where we know that there's changes that are happening cognitively because there's changes in the depth perception. And we know that most of the collisions that are happening, a lot of people think that they're happening at night, they're happening in broad daylight during kind of during the week when people are out and about. There's a long, long list of, of warning signs.

But so I think this test, this very simple, straightforward, easy test that you shared is amazing. If you can step up on the curb right foot first and step down right foot first without any, you know, issue.

You might be okay. But if you can't, you might want to ask some questions.

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's one part, it's one part of many, you know, you're really looking for at least like five kind of warning signs. And the thing that I encourage every family to do, and if you don't have family close by or don't have family like adult children, that can help you ask your friends or your neighbors to go out for a ride along. And by that, I mean you have a review of these warning signing checklists and you go out and you're just observing how is the driver doing on the road? And then have a conversation because it's kind of surprising. Many families will say, my mum shouldn't driving anymore. But when I ask when was the last time you went for a ride along? And it could be five or 10 years.

Oh, my goodness.

So we have, we have holidays coming up and it's a good time to kind of review, see, check, go out and just go to all the normal destinations and don't give any feedback in the car. Just be a passenger and just be observing. And depending on what you're noticing.

Have a conversation about that. And if, if the person doesn't want to talk about it right away, revisit it the next day, especially if memory starting to become concern.

Yeah.

Well, one of the things that I love about what you're saying, Melanie and I have lots of funny stories I could tell you about this topic, but one of the things that I love is you're telling people you haven't said it directly. But don't assume that people are a bad driver just because they're getting older or even in their mid-80s.

Yes.

Find out for sure. Give them an opportunity to prove you wrong. And yeah, then you, if you have to have a hard conversation, and we know this is a very difficult conversation.

So I will tell you one funny story about a neighbor I used to have. She has since passed on, God rest her soul. But.

Every week, someone was knocking down my mailbox, and we didn't know who was doing it. And I thought, is someone out to get me? What's going on here? You know? So after about the fourth week, I was in the yard working in one of the flower gardens, and I saw my mailbox get knocked down. And I saw who the culprit was. It was my elderly neighbor across the street, God love her. And, yeah, I went over and said. Said, Mrs. Moore, what's going on? Do you know? You're. You're knocking down my mailbox every week.

And she's like, I wondered what that noise was. She was so sweet. And I remember her telling me, after a while, she parked her car, and she. One time she said, I want you to go to the gas station with me. And I thought, oh, dear God, I don't know if I'll make it, but, yeah, I'll go with you. And she said, oh, I want you to drive. So she had come to the realization on her own without anyone forcing her because she lived alone. And, you know, we went and it was at the back, back in, like in 0809, when gas was $6 a gallon.

I'll never forget this sweetest lady in the world. She flipped out a 20 and said, fill her up. And I said, oh, my gosh, I can't do that. With a 20, we can get three gallons.

But she was a little out of touch in terms of what was going on in the big world. But certainly. HomeCaire.

Everybody wants to be safe. Now, that's a funny story. I also have a very unhappy story recently. A friend of ours, we've been friends with his family since the 70s. Their dad was killed in a car accident, and they knew they were begging him to stop driving, but he would not. It was, as you say, middle of day, pulled out in front of a truck for reasons unknown, and that was the end of him. He would not hear them. So what do you say to families who are dealing with family members who.

I mean, is there. Is there a talking point that is more effective than others? Like, how do you reach somebody who just won't hear it?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is such a challenge for so many families. So, number one, get organized. Be prepared. Have a strategy, have a plan. And by that, I mean do some research in the area where your loved one lives and find out about all the transportation options that are available. And a lot of the senior centers have volunteer driver programs and at county level under the paratransit program for the local bus services they also have.

In most states they'll have a paratransit program for people that are no longer driving or, you know, perhaps have a disability and they need additional assistance. But I would. What I recommend to everyone is have a plan before you even bring up this conversation. Number two, go out for the ride along so you have specific information that you can share. And don't come from a personal criticizing viewpoint. You need to kind of note that, you know, things are changing. I'm worried about. You come from a place of love, care and compassion.

Yeah.

The US is not HomeCaire.

Not really set up. People rely on our cars really heavily and the mentality for most is that driving is a, is a right rather than a privilege. So this is a really, this is a really tough topic and if you can understand that, it's about one more loss. It's about this fear of losing independence. It's about having to give up control and my kids or my family having more say in what's going on in my life. And so if you can have a plan and support that person that they can still get to all of their usual activities that they enjoy, that transition will be a whole lot easier. Because we know that the next six months, when somebody retires from driving, we know that those next six months are really critical in terms of reducing isolation and reducing depression because we want that person really just to transition to the passenger seat and still go about living their lives as independently as possible. Yes.

So there are. I have some resources I'm happy to share with you as well. I can email that or, or you can post that. Whatever. You let me know what you need, Lisa. But certainly having a plan and if there are memory concerns, make sure you get legal advice and you get things in place. Unfortunately, I hear of many cases where.

Their loved one has a dementia diagnosis and nobody has POA and the vehicle is still in mum or dad's name and the vehicle sitting out in the driveway way and the person keeps trying to find the car keys to drive the vehicle. And often cases will do that. So really just being prepared and deciding in the families, because not everybody will always be on the same page. You might have one sibling or, or, you know, you might have one relative that lives out of state that doesn't see that there's an issue because they're not visiting very often. And you might have another. Another relative that's living in the same town and is seeing the changes on a daily basis. So super important that people can try and be on the same pages as much as they can. And if you've got, like, in this case, you know, someone that's really resistant, talking about the risk of, you know, how would you feel if you injured a mother and a child? Nobody gets behind the wheel to set out to do something like that.

Like really trying to focus on the empathy around that for stubborn individuals where, you know, absolutely no way that I'm going to do this will prove us wrong. Often works really well. We, we love you, we care about you, we want to have more Christmases and holidays together. You know, prove us wrong and then we can get off your back. We're just really worried about this. We just need to know where things are at and presenting it as, you know, this will give you a baseline because that's what it does. It. There's parameters with it within this assessment.

Yeah.

And the driver and the family will see, okay, my mum's still in the healthy, normal range. Oh, no, she's not. Things are starting to change. But from that we know we need to keep an eye on her, do the ride along every three to four months and maybe get her reviewed in about a year or two years. Like it all depends.

Yeah.

So certainly I think the more that you can involve your loved one, your parent or your spouse or whoever that person is, your neighbor, elderly friend, the more you involve them in this, the better the outcome, rather than telling them how it's going to be. Because most people aren't, you know, setting out to upset the family, but they are trying to hang on desperately to this last piece of what they see as their. Their independence. And so if you can really just come from a place of that love and care and compassion, because that's really what it is at the end of the day, you're wanting to keep those that you care about as safe as possible. The other thing that often works too, Lisa, is talking about the liability and the risk. I can only speak for California here, but what is starting to happen now is when the injured party learns that there's a cognitive impairment issue for the person at fault. They are subpoenaing medical records, and litigation has become very expensive. I mean, it's.

We're already a litigious state, as everyone knows, but sometimes presenting it to someone who's really digging their heels in about not wanting to come in. You know, everything you've worked for, dad, you've. You've built this incredible life for your family. You've been an amazing provider. We haven't gone without. Everything that you've worked for is potentially at risk. And so sometimes coming from an economic framework and the risk and the liability can also help that.

It's amazing advice. And certainly we are. I mean, we laugh about some of the stories, but we're not discounting the difficulty of this decision for the individual, older adult, or for the family members. It is huge. Especially if you've been driving for four or five or six decades without incident. You've never had an accident. You know, and one of the things about driving is we know statistically that everybody on the road thinks they're a better driver than everyone else on the road. That's just what we all think.

Not really can't be true. You can't be better than everyone. There has to be some people who are in the lower 50 percentile than the higher. But it's perception. And our independence, as you say in this country, is very much tied to our ability to get in our car and go do what we need to do or what we want to do. And giving that up, it hurts. It's hard. Yeah.

Yeah. And the thing. The thing, too, is that.

When you ask somebody how they're driving is like when clients come into me, you know, they'll say, I haven't had it. I haven't had an accident in, you know, 50 years, is I have a clean driving record. Most people will talk about their driving in a past tense. They're not talking about currently, what's happening. And so what happens is when you have a medical condition or medications, or maybe you haven't driven for a while and. Or maybe the person isn't. Hasn't even spoken with their doctor about their concerns. What happens is, typically, driving skills change slowly over a period of time.

Vacations. Be sure to talk with your prescription, your physician, and your pharmacist about that. I learned a staggering statistic about a year or so ago. Less than 20% of people will talk to their physician about driving concerns. Yet we have 7.2 million Americans living with dementia. And the Alzheimer's association estimates that 30 to 40% are driving. So it works out to be about 2 million drivers, many of whom are not diagnosed, many who have not even spoken with their family because everyone's so worried about losing their license, let alone talking with their physicians about it. And the physicians, a lot of them don't have time to do any kinds of assessment or don't know about driving assessment, you know, referral process in the community.

So if someone has cognitive impairment, their at risk collision rate for being at fault increases to three times. And so we've got a group of people that are keeping their licenses for longer. We have a quarter of the population this year will be 65 years plus. So it really is a community responsibility. And if you do have neighbors, I mean, that was so great you were able to help your neighbor, but a lot of people just don't want to get involved. But we know that with storefront collisions, we know that 39% of what happens is over 100 of those every day. We have about 26, 16,000 injured every year. We have about 2,600 killed.

And we know that about 39% of those collisions are due to pedal error and pedal confusion. So we really, it really is a community responsibility. You know, this is a big part of the presentations that I give out in the community so people can become aware and know what things they need to look out for themselves.

And thank you so much. This is invaluable information. I hope everybody listens to it. If you don't happen to live in California and have access to the technology there. And you said you were in the San Francisco Bay area?

Yes, yes.

What is the name of your company?

My assessment center is called HomeCaire. And I want all your listeners to know that they can reach out at any time. I'm a resource for people national and also I have calls from Canada as well, believe it or not. So I'm here to, to help as many people as I can. There's no cost for that. It's confidential. The website for me is www.dcacbayarea.com. it's HomeCaire.

And people can certainly give me a call or send me an email and I'll connect you with who the driver rehab professionals are that are in your area and also whether this technology is available at a local hospital.

Melanie, thank you so much. We will be sure to put links to all of this when the podcast publishes. And as I said, if you, if you hear this and you know, somebody who needs to hear it, please share it because this is incredible information and I love the fact that you are coming from a place of love and you are. You talk about being an advocate. Don't get the bossiest person in the family to go tell your, your older adult what's going to happen. That's not how this works. It won't be effective. Let's put it that way.

It won't work that way. And let's also be sure that we're operating on factual information and not our perception. That's what's so great about the technology and the opportunity to come to a center like the one that you've opened and get, you know, real an unbiased opinion, an unbiased result in terms of, you know, am I in the safe zone or am I fading or have I faded and then we can go from there. In terms of what to do next, what would you like to leave our listeners with?

I think that if you have somebody in your life where you're seeing these changes, you really need to try and have the courage and step up and come from that framework of the love, care and compassion and be that adult because sometimes the person that you're so concerned about isn't able to do that anymore because of losing some insight about their own capabilities. And just be informed and get yourself educated and be prepared and have a strategy and be, you know, be aware of what you need to do.

Perfect. Sound wonderful advice, listeners. Thank you for joining. Till next time. May the road rise to meet you May the wind be forever at your back.