Aim: The study describes the driving habits of people with cognitive disorders and previous professional driving experience. A similar study has not been mentioned in the literature.
Method: From a total of 639 drivers who participated in the research, 153 participants were selected based on their answer on an extensive driving questionnaire. They were asked whether they had a professional driving license. Forty-three participants (28.1%) said "Yes", 110 participants (71.9%) said "No". Out of the 153 participants, 55 (35.9%) were diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease (AD), 44 (28.8%) with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), and 54 (35.3%) were healthy. Additionally, 31 professional drivers were compared to 31 non-professional drivers (N=62) on a short driving questionnaire. The distribution of the population according to the diagnosis was: 18 (29%) with MCI (N=9 professionals, N=9 non-professionals), 30 (48.4%) with AD (N=15 professionals, N=15 non-professionals), 14 (22.6%) healthy (N=7 professionals, N=7 non-professionals). Professional and non-professional drivers were randomly selected to match in terms of diagnosis, age, gender and years of education. The AD diagnosis was based on the NINCDS-ARDRA criteria while the MCI diagnosis was based on the Petersen and Winblad criteria. Healthy older adults were examined across the same neuropsychological battery.
Results: The extensive driving questionnaire showed that more non-professional AD drivers (21.9%) had not renewed their license compared to professionals (p=0.048). More non-professional MCI drivers (91.7%) travelled fewer kilometers compared to professionals (p=0.029). Taking both MCI (27.6%) and AD patients (63.2%) together, more non-professional drivers always avoided driving in unfamiliar areas compared to professionals, MCI (p=0.045) and AD (p=0.026). Finally, more non-professional AD drivers (80.0%) avoided driving when it snowed compared to professionals (p=0.34). The short driving questionnaire showed that healthy non-professional drivers almost always (85.7%) avoided turning into difficult intersections compared to professional drivers (14.3%) (p=0.001).
Conclusion: People with cognitive disorders and previous professional experience were better at driving than the inexperienced ones.