Whether, and for how long, to allow someone with Alzheimer's disease to continue driving is a difficult balance between society's safety and an individual's rights. Researchers at the University of Iowa College of Public Health may have made the task slightly easier by developing a series of tests which could help predict which people with dementia are riskier drivers. In a study of 155 people the participants took a series of tests of memory, visual processing and motor skills and then took a standard road test driving along a 35-mile route. The Alzheimer's group made more errors, although most of them were minor. Those people who performed better on the lab tests also made fewer errors on the road raising hopes that the tests could be used as part of assessing people's fitness to drive.
You can find out more about this research at
http://uk.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUKTRE5187H120090209?feedType=RSS&feedName=healthNews&sp=true
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