Very old drivers: findings from a population cohort of people aged 84 and over

Abstract

A process of self-selection takes place among older drivers. People over the age of 84 who are still driving have generally high levels of physical fitness and mental functioning, although some have some sensory loss. Given the likely increase in the number of older drivers over the next decades, safety will be improved most by strategies aimed at the entire driving population with older drivers in mind, rather than relying on costly screening programmes to identify the relatively small numbers of impaired older people who continue to drive.

Road traffic injuries in the elderly

“…Often older drivers elect to stop driving when their competency reduces with age. 17 However, the increased fragility of the aging body cannot be offset. Thus we should look more into safer cars and safety measures for the elderly motor vehicle users.…”

Multiple imputation was an efficient method for harmonizing the Mini-Mental State Examination with missing item-level data

“…The popularity of the MMSE can be attributed, in part, to its ease of use but perhaps more importantly to its reported sensitivity and specificity for detecting probable dementia [8e10]. The MMSE is also often used as a general indicator of cognitive function in epidemiological studies, as either a predictor or a control for cognitive differences, and across a wide range of aging contexts, including driving, disability, and mortality [2,11,12]. Consequently, optimizing the reliability of measurement of cognitive function with the MMSE could have significant benefits in the epidemiological research of cognitive health.…”

Health conditions, health symptoms and driving difficulties in older adults

“…Health problems and lack of confidence have been cited as important factors associated with cessation of driving in older adults [4][5][6][7]. The mechanisms through which health conditions may affect driving behaviours, however, are not clear.…”