Institute of Biomedical Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
KITE Research Institute, Toronto Rehabilitation Institute-University Health Network, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Gerontologist. 2022 Aug 12;62(7):1050-1062. doi: 10.1093/geront/gnab174.
Driving cessation is a complex challenge with significant emotional and health implications for people with dementia, which also affects their family care partners. Automated vehicles (AVs) could potentially be used to delay driving cessation and its adverse consequences for people with dementia and their care partners. Yet, no study to date has investigated whether care partners consider AVs to be potentially useful for people with dementia.
This mixed-methods study assessed the views of 20 former or current family care partners of people with dementia on AV use by people with dementia. Specifically, questionnaires and semistructured interviews were used to examine care partners' acceptance of AV use by people with dementia and their views about the potential usefulness of AVs for people with dementia.
The results demonstrated that care partners identified possible benefits of AV use by people with dementia such as their anticipated higher social participation. However, care partners also voiced major concerns around AV use by people with dementia and reported significantly lower levels of trust in and perceived safety of AVs if used by the person with dementia in their care compared to themselves. Care partners' concerns about AV use by people with dementia included concerns around the driving of people with dementia that AVs are not designed to address; concerns that are specific to AVs but are not relevant to the nonautomated driving of people with dementia; and concerns that arise from existing challenges around the nonautomated driving of people with dementia but may be exacerbated by AV use.
Findings from this study can inform future designs of AVs that are more accessible and useful for people with dementia.
对于痴呆症患者及其家庭照护者来说，停止驾驶是一个具有重大情感和健康影响的复杂挑战。自动驾驶汽车（AV）可能会被用来延迟痴呆症患者的驾驶停止及其对他们及其家庭照护者的不利后果。然而，迄今为止，没有研究调查家庭照护者是否认为 AV 对痴呆症患者具有潜在的用处。
这项混合方法研究评估了 20 名痴呆症患者的前或现任家庭照护者对痴呆症患者使用 AV 的看法。具体而言，使用问卷调查和半结构化访谈来检查照护者对痴呆症患者使用 AV 的接受程度，以及他们对 AV 对痴呆症患者潜在用处的看法。
研究结果表明，照护者认为痴呆症患者使用 AV 可能具有某些好处，例如他们预期的更高的社交参与度。然而，照护者也对痴呆症患者使用 AV 表示了重大担忧，并报告说，如果 AV 由照护者本人使用，他们对 AV 的信任度和感知安全性显著低于由痴呆症患者本人使用。照护者对痴呆症患者使用 AV 的担忧包括对 AV 无法解决的痴呆症患者的驾驶问题的担忧；与非自动化的痴呆症患者驾驶相关但与 AV 无关的担忧；以及源自非自动化的痴呆症患者驾驶的现有挑战但可能因 AV 使用而加剧的担忧。
这项研究的结果可以为未来更适合痴呆症患者使用的 AV 设计提供信息。
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