Assessing whether or not a stroke patient can resume driving can be difficult. This study validates a neuropsychological test battery for assessing the patient's attentional and cognitive ability. 30 stroke patients and 30 matched controls participated in the study, with a mean age of 68 years and a mean interval since stroke onset of 8.6 months. The patients performed significantly worse on cognitive and attentional processing measured by the neuropsychological test battery. The patients had significantly greater difficulty in allocating processing resources to a secondary information processing task during driving in an advanced simulator. The patients performed worse driving in real traffic and had less driving skill; one-half did not pass the driving test. The neuropsychological test battery showed a pattern with three factors: (1) attentional processing; (2) executive capacity; and (3) cognitive processing. Regression models based on simulator driving variables correctly classified driving skill in 85% of the cases, and neuropsychological test variables classified correctly in 83% of the cases. Results suggest that decreased cognitive and attentional processing are associated with an overall speed impairment.
Abstract