What factors lead older adults to stop driving? A new study followed older adults who had no memory or thinking problems to examine this question. The study is published in the May 22, 2024, online issue of Neurology ® , the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Alzheimer's disease develops over a long time-;people may have a 10- to 15-year period where they have no symptoms, but the disease process is developing in the brain.
We were looking to see whether older adults with signs of early Alzheimer's would be more likely to stop driving than people without these signs." Ganesh M. Babulal, PhD, OTD, study author of Washington University School of Medicine in St.
Louis, Missouri The study involved 283 participants with an average age of 72 who drove at least once a week. They had cognitive tests at the start of the study and then every year for an average of 5.6 years.
They also had brain scans and cerebrospinal fluid collected at the start of the study and then every two to three years. During the study, 24 people stopped driving, 15 people died and 46 people developed cognitive impairment. Among the people who stopped driving, nine people had a neurologic condition, four had significant vision changes, eight had general health issues, and three moved to an assisted living facility.
Among the whole group, about one-third of the people met the criteria for preclinical Alzheimer's based on levels of biomarkers for the disease-;amyloid plaques and tau tangles-;i.
