And earlier than members of the family take the keys from an older relative, they need to acknowledge the adversarial penalties of “driving retirement,” Dr. Aronson wrote in The New England Journal of Medication in an essay aptly titled, “Don’t Ruin My Life — Aging and Driving in the 21st Century.” Damaging results embrace elevated social isolation, melancholy and loneliness, all correlated with poor well being and a shortened life.
When compelled by advancing years or well being points to cease driving, folks can lose standing and self-respect in addition to independence and alternatives that improve their well-being, she identified.
In fact, age by itself shouldn’t be a dependable determinant for when folks ought to cease driving. Folks of their 90s who’re bodily match and drive usually will be higher drivers than 70-year-olds who’re out of form and drive occasionally.
To justify persevering with to drive, older folks might inform others they don’t go farther than the grocery retailer, they keep off the freeway or they don’t drive at night time. However such feedback generally is a crimson flag that it’s time to cease driving altogether, Dr. Aronson mentioned. Competent driving is a talent that requires observe to take care of — “the much less you drive, the much less good you might be at it,” she mentioned. “Use it or lose it.”
Brenda Vrkljan, a rehabilitation specialist at McMaster College in Hamilton, Ontario, is doing what she will to assist older adults proceed to drive safely by monitoring the place and once they drive and the way they behave behind the wheel.
“Older drivers are, all in all, superb drivers,” she advised me. “However driving shouldn’t be a proper. It’s a privilege we now have to earn; we must be conscious that issues change as we grow old and we don’t essentially have the identical expertise. Driving entails complicated maneuvers, and most of the people outlive their driving means.”
A program referred to as Candrive, which Dr. Vrkljan helped set up, is monitoring the driving patterns of older adults to evaluate what modifications would possibly improve security. In an ongoing examine, she and colleagues are putting cameras in getting older drivers’ vehicles to document their unsafe missteps, like failing to verify mirrors earlier than altering lanes, not stopping quickly sufficient or fumbling with a espresso cup. Afterward, the drivers can view the video, providing them a possibility to bear witness to their limitations.
