Elderly drivers in Japan over the age of 75 have been required to attend traffic safety courses since January 1999. In the courses, visual acuity tests for motion are performed as a part of the aptitude tests, and about 80% of the subjects show scores of 0.1 - 0.2, which is the lowest boundary level. This result raises doubts about the effectiveness of the visual acuity tests for motion in elderly people. A further problem is that the test method and the results obtained with this method have not been fully evaluated. In this study, dynamic moving detectability, misses (non-responses), false alarms, and delayed responses were measured in 518 drivers between the ages of 10 and 90 using a dynamic vigilance checker (DVC), which was developed to solve the problems of the conventional visual acuity tests of motion. The changes in visual acuity of motion with ageing were evaluated. The decrease in dynamic moving detectability and the increase in misses were significant in those in their 60s and 70s. The number of false alarms and delayed responses were dependent on the eye movement requirements of the task. Reduction of visual functions in subjects over 75 years of age depended on the individual, showing the validity of DVC. This study showed that the DVC for visual function tests of motion was suitable for drivers of different ages, indicating that it can replace the ineffective visual acuity tests of motion used for elderly drivers at present. For the covering abstract see ITRD E113725 (C 22328 CD-ROM).
Abstract