ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE AND DRIVING PERFORMANCE

老年人严重依赖汽车来维持他们的行动能力， 因此，驾驶与生活质量、个人独立性和 自尊。认知障碍在以前的工作中被认为是一种 老年人不安全驾驶和撞车的危险因素。 虽然大多数专家都认为驾驶是不安全的，因此 在AD的中度到重度阶段，没有根据，有很大的 关于那些具有温和形式的人是否有争议 状况应该在方向盘后面。而不是刻板印象老年人 被推定为轻度AD的司机有很高的撞车风险， 越来越多的专家认为，功能评估 驾驶技术是决定赞成或反对的唯一公平的方式 个人驾驶执照，因为年龄或医疗诊断 事实证明，单独作为标准是不可靠的。在这个项目中，我们 提出一项前瞻性研究，以检验 轻度老年性痴呆患者认知功能障碍与驾驶行为的关系 阿尔茨海默病(AD)患者和年龄匹配的未患AD的对照组。 受试者将通过ADRC临床中心提供给该项目 核心。认知能力将通过一组全面的 测试涵盖认知和其他功能领域，据信 对安全驾驶很重要。这些测试将由亚洲发展研究中心进行 神经心理学核心，并在 驾驶评估。驾驶表现将在驾驶中进行评估 模拟器，提供多种驾驶能力的衡量标准 各种任务需求。驾驶模拟器设施已经就位 在UAB，由NIA资助的研究资源提供 罗伊巴尔应用老年学研究中心。任何关联 认知障碍和驾驶模拟器性能之间的关系 将根据年龄、视力等潜在的混杂因素进行调整 损害，以及其他已知的慢性医疗和功能问题 影响老年人的驾驶能力。这个项目的主要目标是 是确定阿尔茨海默病患者的认知障碍与 损害了驾驶性能，因此功能测试电池可以 最终开发为对患有AD的老年人进行筛查，以确定 驾驶。

Older adults rely heavily on the automobile to maintain their mobility, and thus driving is tied to quality of life, personal independence, and self esteem. Cognitive impairment has been identified in prior work as a risk factor for unsafe driving and crash involvement in older adults. While most experts agree that driving is unsafe and therefore unwarranted in the moderate to severe stages of AD, there is a great deal of controversy about whether those with the mild form of this condition should be behind the wheel. Rather than stereotyping older drivers with presumed mild 'AD as having a high crash risk, an increasing number of experts are arguing that the functional evaluation of driving skills is the only fair way to decide for or against licensure in an individual driver, because age or medical diagnosis alone have proven to be unreliable as criteria. In this project, we propose a prospective study to examine the relationship between cognitive impairment and driving performance in older adults with mild Alzheimer's disease (AD) and in age-matched controls who do not have AD. Subjects will be made available to the project through the ADRC Clinical Core. Cognitive abilities will be assessed by a comprehensive battery of tests covering cognitive and other functional domains believed to be important to safe driving. These tests will be carried out by the ADRC Neuropsychology Core, and supplemented by additional tests on the day of driving assessment. Driving performance will be assessed in a driving simulator which provides several measures of driving ability under various task demands. The driving simulator facility is already in place at UAB and is made available as a research resource by the NIA-funded Roybal Center for Research in Applied Gerontology. Any associations found between cognitive impairment and driving simulator performance will be adjusted for potential confounders such as age, vision impairment, and other chronic medical and functional problems known to impact driving ability in older adults. The major goal of this project is determine how cognitive impairment in persons with AD is related to impaired driving performance, so that a functional test battery can be ultimately developed to screen older persons with AD for fitness to drive.