Department of Clinical Psychology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA.
Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Health Care System, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.
Gerontology. 2022;68(1):98-105. doi: 10.1159/000515497. Epub 2021 Apr 7.
The aim of the study was to examine the unique contributions of age to objectively measure driving frequency and dangerous driving behaviors in healthy older adults after adjusting for executive function (EF).
A total of 28 community-dwelling older adults (mean age = 82.0 years, standard deviation [SD] = 7.5) without dementia who were in good physical health and enrolled in a longitudinal aging study completed several EF and clinical self-report measures at baseline. Participants subsequently had a sensor installed in their vehicle for a mean of 208 (SD = 38, range = 127-257) days.
Participants drove for an average of 54 min per day. Mixed-effects models indicated that after controlling for EF, older age was associated with less time driving per day, decreased number of trips, and less nighttime driving. Age was not associated with hard brakes or hard accelerations.
After accounting for EF, greater age is associated with higher driving self-regulation but not dangerous driving behaviors in healthy older adults. Future studies should recruit larger samples and collect sensor-measured driving data over a more extended time frame to better determine how and why these self-regulation changes take place.
本研究旨在通过调整执行功能（EF），考察年龄对健康老年人的客观驾驶频率和危险驾驶行为的独特贡献。
共有 28 名认知正常、身体健康的社区居住的老年人（平均年龄=82.0 岁，标准差[SD]=7.5）参加了一项纵向衰老研究，在基线时完成了几项 EF 和临床自我报告的测量。随后，参与者在他们的车辆中安装了一个传感器，平均使用时间为 208 天（SD=38，范围为 127-257）。
参与者每天平均驾驶 54 分钟。混合效应模型表明，在控制了 EF 后，年龄越大，每天驾驶的时间越短，出行次数越少，夜间驾驶越少。年龄与急刹车或急加速无关。
在考虑了 EF 之后，健康的老年人年龄越大，驾驶的自我调节能力越高，但危险驾驶行为越少。未来的研究应该招募更大的样本，并在更长的时间内收集传感器测量的驾驶数据，以更好地确定这些自我调节变化是如何以及为什么发生的。
