Automobile driving and Alzheimer's disease

Previous studies have shown that elderly drivers suffering from dementia de monstrate impaired driving performance. However, there have been few studie s to date and not all have found a significant correlation between severity of dementia and impaired driving performance. Similarly, standard cognitiv e performance tests used to determine the severity of dementia have not acc urately predicted driving impairment. In view of this, we have developed a practical test to determine impaired driving skills. While the elderly heal thy control group and the Alzheimer's patient group both demonstrated impai red responses when undertaking this test, the Alzheimer's group specificall y found road signs of increasing complexity difficult to recognise and to r espond to.