AUTOMOBILE DRIVING IN HUNTINGTONS-DISEASE

We assessed the influence of the neurological and cognitive impairment s of Huntington's disease (HD) on automobile driving. In a group of 73 HD outpatients, 53 (72%) continued to drive after illness onset. Thos e no longer driving had more severe symptoms than those still driving. Twenty-nine HD patients who were still driving and 16 healthy control subjects underwent a clinical examination, a cognitive examination, a driving-simulator assessment, and completed questionnaires about driv ing history and habits. HD patients performed significantly worse than control subjects on the driving-simulator tasks and were more likely to have been involved in a collision in the preceding 2 years (58% of HD vs. 11% of control subjects). Patients with collisions were less fu nctionally impaired but had slower simple reaction time scores than di d those without collisions. HD patients are at increased risk for acci dents, but patients who have accidents are not easily distinguished fr om those who do not.