Some patients with dementia safe to drive
April 12, 2010
Theresa Boyle
HEALTH REPORTER
New American guidelines on when it’s safe for patients with dementia to drive mirror existing Canadian guidelines in recognizing that some people with mild forms of the disease are safe behind the wheel.
The new guidelines from the American Academy of Neurology reflect recent research that shows as many as 76 per cent of patients with mild dementia are still able to pass an on-road test and can safely drive, lead guideline author Dr. Donald Iverson told a news conference at the academy’s annual meeting in Toronto on Monday.
“Faced with these facts, we needed to provide guidelines for doctors caring for these patients to identify those people at higher risk of unsafe driving, without unnecessarily restricting those who are safe drivers,” he said.
Guidelines by the Canadian Medical Association, last updated in 2006, already recognize that some people with mild dementia are safe to drive. While these guidelines say that people with moderate to severe dementia should not get behind the wheel, they also state that the ability of people with mild dementia should be tested on an individual basis.
“I think the AAN has revised its guidelines more along the lines of the CMA,” remarked Dr. Mark Rapoport, a clinical scientist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre who has extensively researched the issue.
The AAN’s new guidelines are an update on ones issued in 2000, which state that people with an even milder form of Alzheimer’s disease “pose a significant traffic safety problem when compared to other elder drivers.”
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