Resources for families.

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Good indicators for driving rehabilitation include things like changes in vision (ie Parkinson’s Disease), sensation (ie, peripheral neuropathy), muscle strength or coordination (ie, stroke, brain injury, spinal cord injury, ALS). Changes in cognition are one of the leading indicators for driving rehabilitation. This might be the result of one of the above conditions or even conditions such as delirium, dementia, seizures, or a heart attack.

Driver rehabilitation typically has three phases. The clinical screening (of your coordination, reaction times, cognition, vision, etc), the on-road driving portion, and the recommendations phase. These recommendations might suggest you are ok to return to driving independently (YAY!) or they might recommend additional training if you need specialized equipment due to your condition or skills. There is a good resource from The Hartford to help you understand details of a comprehensive driving evaluation. You can review one such pamphlet from there here.

Sometimes the recommendations might encourage continued training with your local physical, occupational, or speech therapist to continue to develop skills for driving. We would recommend searching for a therapist who is familiar with your diagnosis and has addressed driving skills training with other patients. You can usually find this out by calling a clinic and asking if they have a therapist familiar with driving skills training. Sometimes these providers can also complete a clinical screening of your skills, information we might be able to use in a driving evaluation through Bridges. If a provider you are working is looking for more information or training in these skills, please feel free to direct them to our webiste.

There are also some great apps and activities that you can do to work on your skills for driving. Games that require a degree of processing speed (ie, Tetris or even some sports), or problem solving (ie Cut the Rope app or Flow Free app). There is a great app (available only on tablets, ipad or android) called DriveFocus though it does have a small cost associated with it’s download.

We get this question a lot. Is age enough to say that someone shouldn’t be driving? The short answer is “No, but…”

While changes occur with aging, we also know that our older drivers have a lot of experience with driving. Often times older drivers adhere to the speed limit better that other drivers, or might be more cautious than other drivers. Here’s where the “but” comes in. The changes with aging sometimes have more to do with your ability to heal in the case where there might be a traffic accident (even if it’s not your fault).

According to the CDC, in 2019, an average of 20 older adults were killed every day in car accidents and another 700 (or close to) were injured. The changes that occur as a normal part of aging may make it harder for you to heal after an accident. This may include healing from a concussion (from hitting head on the headrest or whiplash), broken bones (collarbone from airbag deployment or hip from being outstretched on a pedal during a collision) or even hospitalization for worse associated injuries. We do know that it takes longer for older adults to heal and sometimes that includes longer stages of inflammation, changes in blood circulation related to blood pressure (affecting wound healing), loss of bone or muscle mass (with risk leading to increased pain or risk for fracture). Other changes that may occur with aging are changes in vision (cataracts, glaucoma, low vision) or thinking skills (memory, reaction times) which may benefit from further evaluation with a local rehabilitation therapist like speech therapy or occupational therapy.

Again, age itself is not a determining factor. Some older adults who maintain a good exercise routine and diet as well as healthy sleep routine, might show good signs of healing and intact skills for driving. Others may not. There was recently a study published by AAA, the LongROAD study, that included 2,990 drivers aged 65-79 years in five states. The results of that study found that less than 1/5th of the participants indicated reduced driving over the past year. It also found the that driving was associated with a sense of independence and emotional well-being. So, as an older adult, we want to make sure that you are safe to continue driving BUT, if not, we aim to help you find strategies to maintain those social connections and ways to stay active and engaged in both your social affairs and healthcare.