The paper proposes, on both theoretical and empirical grounds, that attention skills in relation to driving should be exaimned in older adults with and without dementia of alzheimer's type (dat). Suchinvestigations should focus on normal older adults and those in themild, early stages of dementia because the latter are the most likely among the dementia population to be still driving. Evidence is presented indicating the following: motor vehicle accident rates are related to information processing performance; the relationship is greatest for measures of the swiching of selective attention and less for that of divided and sustained attention; many of these same attentional functions are impaired in the early stage of dat and thus may contriubte to increased accedent risk.
Abstract