RETURN TO DRIVING AFTER TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY - Part I
Guest Editors: Bruno Gradenigo, Anna Mazzucchi Free access

Europa Medicophysica 2001 December;37(4):227-33

Copyright © 2009 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Ability to drive after traumatic brain injury: neuropsychological aspects. The CARA experience

Strypstein E., Arno P., Eeckhout G., Baten G.

From the Belgian Road Safety Institute, Department CARA, Brussels, Belgium

Back­ground. The ­authors ­describe the ­activity of the ­CARA, ­Centre for the eval­u­a­tion of the fit­ness to ­drive and for the ­vehicle adap­ta­tion, a depart­ment of the Bel­gian ­Road ­Safety Insti­tute, the offi­cial ­authority for ­assessing the fit­ness to ­drive of per­sons suf­fering ­from impair­ments ­affecting ­their ­driving abil­ities.
­Methods. The eval­u­a­tion pro­ce­dure is mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary and ­entails a med­ical exam­ina­tion, a neu­ro­psy­cho­log­ical exam­ina­tion and prac­tical on-­road and off-­road ­tests. The neu­ro­psy­cho­log­ical exam­ina­tion is to ­delimit the behav­i­oural con­se­quences ­that ­brain inju­ries can ­have on ­driving. Espe­cially ­visual, per­cep­tive and atten­tional pro­cesses are exam­ined ­through ­written and com­pu­ter­ized ­tests.
­Results. A ­logistic regres­sion anal­ysis ­shows ­that the fit­ness to ­drive ­advice can be pre­dicted at ­best by ­means of 2 sub­tests of the TEA bat­tery: “­Visual ­field” and “Scan­ning”, but the accu­racy ­remains rel­a­tive.
Con­clu­sions. The on-­road ­test ­allows to ­observe the func­tioning of the com­pen­sa­tory strat­e­gies in a ­real-­life sit­u­a­tion, par­tic­u­larly ­with ­regard to the tac­tical ­aspects of ­driving.