{"id":36837,"date":"2025-12-09T23:24:49","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T23:24:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/pumping-irony-hows-my-driving\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T23:24:49","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T23:24:49","slug":"pumping-irony-hows-my-driving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/pumping-irony-hows-my-driving\/","title":{"rendered":"PUMPING IRONY: How\u2019s My Driving?"},"content":{"rendered":"

My favorite cognitive test is a three-minute assessment known as the Mini-Cog<\/a>. Often used during a senior\u2019s routine check-up, the test requires the patient to remember a specific set of words while drawing the hands on a clock to indicate a certain time and then reciting the words uttered earlier.<\/p>\n

The first time I took the test I could only recall three of the four words until the nurse provided some clues. There was no mention of any follow-up tests after I flunked that first attempt, which to my way of thinking makes it a very popular test. Who wants to dwell on their potential cognitive slippage?<\/p>\n

Your loved ones or caregivers, on the other hand, might be curious about those results. And that\u2019s why a new approach described last month in the journal Neurology<\/em><\/a> may get some traction in the years to come. It would identify cognitive impairment by tracking an older adult\u2019s driving patterns.<\/p>\n

Ganesh Babulal, PhD<\/a>, and his team of researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis recruited 298 seniors with an average age of 75 \u2014 nearly one-fifth of whom had been diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment \u2014 and installed a GPS-tracking device in their vehicles. For more than three years, the team collected data on the participants\u2019 driving behavior, tested their cognitive capacity annually, and discovered that how they operated a vehicle was a reliable indicator of neurological functioning.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe found that, using a GPS data-tracking device, we could more accurately determine who had developed cognitive issues than [by] looking at just factors such as age cognitive test scores, and whether they had a genetic risk factor related to Alzheimer\u2019s disease,\u201d Babulal notes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe found that, using a GPS data-tracking device, we could more accurately determine who had developed cognitive issues than [by] looking at just factors such as age cognitive test scores, and whether they had a genetic risk factor related to Alzheimer\u2019s disease,\u201d Babulal notes.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The devices reported everything from frequency, duration, and distance of trips to speeding, abrupt braking, and route deviation. Analyzing this data, researchers were able to predict with 82 percent accuracy whether a participant had developed mild cognitive impairment. Despite the small, fairly homogenous sample (highly educated and white), Babulal believes the results could lead to a more effective public-health approach.<\/p>\n

\u201cLooking at people\u2019s daily driving behavior is a relatively low-burden, unobtrusive way to monitor people\u2019s cognitive skills and ability to function,\u201d he says<\/a>. \u201cThis could help identify drivers who are at risk earlier for early intervention, before they have a crash or near miss, which is often what happens now.\u201d<\/p>\n

This raises what, for many seniors and their loved ones, is a thorny question: How do you prepare for a time when you\u2019re no longer cognitively capable of operating a vehicle? As you might expect, it\u2019s not something most of us actively consider.<\/p>\n

A recent University of Michigan survey<\/a> shows that less than half of the nearly 3,000 seniors who responded to the poll had given much thought to when or how they would give up their car keys \u2014 even though a good portion of them admitted that they limited their driving under certain conditions. Fewer than one in five were aware of advance driving directives that would spell out conditions under which they\u2019d stop driving. And just 6 percent said they\u2019d discussed potential driving limitations with a healthcare provider.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis demonstrates a major opportunity for primary care providers, vision-care professionals, occupational therapists, pharmacists, and others to discuss the potential impacts of specific conditions or medications on driving ability,\u201d says<\/a> Jeffrey Kullgren, MD, MPH<\/a>, an associate professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School, who directed the poll. \u201cIf an older adult is in the care of a specialist for a chronic condition such as arthritis, diabetes, or a neurological condition, or is having an operation, their specialists and surgical teams could also address potential driving impacts proactively.\u201d<\/p>\n

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An advance driving directive, like the more common advance healthcare directive, describes the conditions under which an elderly driver would agree to give up their car keys and identifies specific people who are responsible for raising concerns when those conditions arise.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

An advance driving directive<\/strong>, like the more common advance healthcare directive, describes the conditions under which an elderly driver would agree to give up their car keys and identifies specific people who are responsible for raising concerns when those conditions arise. The directive endorsed by the Alzheimer\u2019s Association makes the process clear. By signing the nonbinding document, the driver states<\/a>, \u201cI understand that I may forget that I cannot drive anymore and may try to continue driving. If this happens, please know that I support all actions taken, including removing or disabling my car, to help ensure my safety and the safety of others.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019d be more than happy to give up driving if and when it becomes clear that I\u2019m no longer comfortable behind the wheel (as long as I can still pedal a bike), but I\u2019m less sanguine about tracking my driving patterns to determine my cognitive health. I\u2019ve been known to hit 30 in a 25 miles-per-hour zone, I tend to sometimes interpret stop signs on city streets as an acronym for S<\/strong><\/span>o T<\/strong><\/span>hink O<\/strong><\/span>f P<\/strong><\/span>ausing, and just the other day I made a sudden left turn against traffic after realizing I was heading in the wrong direction.<\/p>\n

Those sorts of transgressions under Babulal\u2019s watchful eyes would likely suggest the need for further cognitive testing, and I\u2019m guessing such prescribed assessments would be much more challenging than the Mini-Cog \u2014 even when I\u2019m asked to remember four words rather than three.<\/p>\n

The post PUMPING IRONY: How\u2019s My Driving?<\/a> appeared first on Experience Life<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My favorite cognitive test is a three-minute assessment known as the Mini-Cog. Often used during a senior\u2019s routine check-up, the test requires the patient to remember a specific set of words while drawing the hands on a clock to indicate a certain time and then reciting the words uttered earlier. The first time I took […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36838,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-life"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-10-25 14:46:54","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpnewswire.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}