Background: Due to the heterogeneity of the lesion following a traumatic brain injury (TBI) and the complexity of the driving task, driving assessment and rehabilitation in TBI individuals is challenging. Conventional driving assessment (on-road and in-clinic evaluations) has failed demonstrating effectiveness to assess fitness to drive in TBI individuals.
Objective: We aimed to determine if driving simulators represent an interesting opportunity in assessing and rehabilitating driving skills in TBI individuals.
Methods: We searched PubMed, CINAHL and Cochrane library databases between 27-02-2014 and 08-04-2014 for articles published since 2000 with the contents of simulator driving assessment and rehabilitation.
Results: Out of 488, eight articles with the subject of simulator driving assessment and two with the subject of simulator driving rehabilitation in individuals with TBI were reviewed.
Conclusions: Driving simulators represent a promising avenue for the assessment and rehabilitation of driving skills in TBI individuals as it allows control of stimuli in a safe, challenging and ecologically valid environment and offer the opportunity to measure and record driving performance. Additional studies, however, are needed to document strengths and limitations of this method.
Keywords: Traumatic brain injury; assessment; driving; rehabilitation; simulator.