AI Article Synopsis

  • The study investigates how functional impairments and co-existing health conditions affect driving performance in cognitively normal older adults aged 65 to 88 years.
  • Conducted at the Knight Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, it included 129 participants who met specific driving criteria and used various measurements, including visual and motor skills, to assess driving ability.
  • Results showed that overall medical conditions did not significantly impact driving performance, but there were some connections between physical frailty and contrast sensitivity with driving errors, suggesting these factors should be further explored in future research on older driver safety.

Article Abstract

Objectives: To examine the relationship between key functional impairments, co-morbid conditions and driving performance in a sample of cognitively normal older adults.

Design: Prospective observational study.

Setting: The Knight Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, Washington University at St. Louis.

Participants: Individuals with normal cognition, 64.9 to 88.2 years old (N = 129), with a valid driver's license, who were currently driving at least once per week, and who had participated in longitudinal studies at the Knight Alzheimer's Disease Research Center.

Measurements: Static visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, physical frailty measures, motor skills, total medical conditions, and the modified Washington University Road Test.

Results: When controlling for age, race, gender, APOE, and education the total number of medical conditions was unassociated with both road test scores (pass vs. marginal + fail) and the total driver error count. There were marginal associations of our measure of physical frailty (p = 0.06) and contrast sensitivity score (p = 0.06) with total driving error count.

Conclusion: Future research that focuses on older adults and driving should consider adopting measures of physical frailty and contrast sensitivity, especially in samples that may have a propensity for disease impacting visual and/or physical function (e.g. osteoarthritis, Parkinson's, eye disorders, advanced age >80 years, etc.).

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Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5179007PMC
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0167751PLOS

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