Protocol for the conceptualization and evaluation of a screening-tool for fitness-to-drive assessment in older people with cognitive impairment

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 16; no. 9; p. e0256262
• Main Authors: Zellner, Leonhard, Herpich, Florian, Brieber, David, Herle, Margit, Zwanzger, Peter, Brunnauer, Alexander
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: San Francisco Public Library of Science 01-09-2021; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Aged; Aging; Analysis; Biology and Life Sciences; Clinical medicine; Clinical trials; Cognition; Cognitive ability; Dementia; Driver behavior; Driving ability; Ethics; Etiology; Evaluation; Executive function; Fitness; Geriatrics; Hand tools; Health aspects; Impairment; Medical screening; Medicine; Medicine and Health Sciences; Neurology; Neuropsychology; Older people; Patients; Physiological aspects; Psychiatry; Psychosomatic medicine; Psychotherapy; Registered Report Protocol; Registration; Roads; Social Sciences; Traffic safety; Vehicle safety; Germany; Austria
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0256262

Due to aging and health status people may be subjected to a decrease of cognitive ability and subsequently also a decline of driving safety. On the other hand there is a lack of valid and economically applicable instruments to assess driving performance. The study is designed to develop a valid screening-tool for fitness-to-drive assessment in older people with cognitive impairment externally validated on the basis of on-road driving performance. In a single-centre, non-randomized cross-sectional trial cognitive functioning and on-road-driving-behavior of older drivers will be assessed. Forty participants with cognitive impairment of different etiology and 40 healthy controls will undergo an extensive neuropsychological assessment. Additionally, an on-road driving assessment for external validation of fitness to drive will be carried out. Primary outcome measures will be performance in attention, executive functions and visuospatial tasks that will be validated with respect to performance on the on-road-driving-test. Secondary outcome measures will be sociodemographic, clinical- and driving characteristics to systematically examine their influence on the prediction of driving behavior. In clinical practice counselling patients with respect to driving safety is of great relevance. Thus, having valid, reliable, time economical and easily interpretable screening-tools on hand to counsel patients is of great relevance for practitioners.