Stroke patients who wish to return driving must seek the advice of the DVLA in Swansea, who may wish to consult the patient's GP. Their abilities are assessed and they may or may not be advised to drive. This advise is based on very sujective criteria and a survey of GPs demonstrated inconsistencies in the criteria adopted. The assessment of driving ability has been based on simulator assessment or on cognitive testing, although comparison between a simulator and road-test performance has shown poor agreement between the two. Cognitive assessments have been used in some centres, although rarely have they been fully validated. In order to provide a more objective assessment and to measure cognitive impairments (which may influence driving ability more than physical difficulties) the authors developed a cognitive test battery which appeared to be predictive of driving performance on the road. In this study, 40 patients were administered a battery of cognitive tests and assessed on the road by a BSM driving instructor. Tests were identified which were predictive of driving performance. However, it was essential that these results be validated further and this validation was carried out on a different group of stroke subjects. The aim was to confirm whether pass or fail categories could predicted for stroke patients in general or whether the results were only valid for the group initially studied.
Abstract