Cataract surgery is one of the most common medical procedures undertaken world-wide. This study aimed to investigate whether cataract surgery can improve driving performance and whether this can be predicted by changes in visual function. Twenty nine older participants with bilateral cataracts and eighteen control participants with normal vision were tested. All were licensed drivers. Driving and vision performance were measured prior to cataract surgery and after second eye surgery for the cataract participants and on two separate occasions for the controls. Driving performance was assessed on a closed-road circuit. visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, glare sensitivity and kinetic visual fields were measured at each test session. The cataract participants had significantly poorer driving performance at the first visit compared to the control participants for a range of measures of driving performance, which significantly improved to the level of the control participants following extraction of both cataracts. The change in contrast sensitivity following surgery was the best predictor of the improvements in driving performance in the cataract participants. Cataract surgery results in significant improvements in driving performance and these improvements are related to concurrent improvements in contrast sensitivity. (Author/publisher)
Abstract