In recent years, there have been concerns about an increase in serious accidents and various other problems with the increase in the number of drivers who have dementia, and urgent countermeasures are required. An objective method of measuring the driving ability of older people with dementia has not been established, but there are few reliable and valid techniques that are appropriate for evaluating driving ability in older people and drivers with dementia who are engaged in unsafe driving. The difference in driving characteristics between individuals with and without dementia were investigated using video images recorded using a driving recorder, an in-car device that stores images taken before and after an impact. The subjects were 28 Japanese who drive daily (18 without and 10 with dementia). The test was conducted from October 2007 to October 2009. The Mini-Mental State Examination6 was administered to consenting participants, and their daily driving (-2 weeks) under typical driving conditions was recorded using the driving recorder (Witness Plus, Nihon Kotsu-jiko Kanshiki Kenkyu-jo, Ibaraki, Japan) installed in their cars. This study was performed after receiving approval from the ethics review committee at Fujita Health University School of Medicine. (Author/publisher)
Abstract