In health care, the question is raised whether discharged stroke patients are capable of driving a car safely. There are many difficulties in reliably assessing this ability of such a patient. In an effort to reliably determine a patient's ability to drive safely an assessment tool in the form of a driving simulator has been created for use within the medical field: the Clarus Argus driving simulator. There are other driving simulators used in research concerning fitness to drive, but there is at present no advanced simulator designed especially for the assessment of driving ability and training of patients in the health care sector. A study of 30 patients with impairments after their first stroke is currently being prepared. The study involves three stages of evaluation and assessment. In the first stage, the patients will be submitted to a battery of neuropsychological tests relevant to driving. In the next stage, the patients will drive in the simulator. In the third stage, the patients will drive a car in real traffic together with a driving examiner. So far only preliminary results are available. (A)
Abstract