How can we make older drivers safer on the road? A new study contends that brain-training exercises may be the answer. Older people accounted for 15 percent of all traffic fatalities and 18 percent of all pedestrian deaths, according to a 2008 traffic safety report released by the National Center for Statistics and Analysis.
The study, documented in the November 2010 edition of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, follows 908 drivers over a six-year period with the average age of 73. Those studied were assigned a slew of brain-training exercises using the InSight program.
Participants who underwent the “speed-of-processing” course had fewer at-fault accidents that were 50 percent lower compared to the control group, the study suggest.
"Considering the importance of driving mobility and the cost of crashes, cognitive training has great potential to sustain independence and quality of life in older adults," says paper co-author Jerri Edwards, associate professor of Aging Studies at the University of South Florida. "But importantly, this study provides further evidence that the right kind of brain training program can generalize to improve real-world activities among older adults."
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