On-line test assists in evaluating seniors’ driving abilities
There is now a web-based test that offers a standardized method to rapidly detect brain impairment and dementia. A study published in the February 2007 edition of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society reports that the Automatic Clock Drawing Test ™, a commercially available product, Times2Tell ™, through SpecialtyAutomated Systems Corporation (www.specialtyautomated.com), is the first of its kind to fully automate one of the most widely used cognitive assessment tests, the clock drawing test. This new, sensitive, multimedia, and interactive test also offers a uniform, objective, and user-friendly method to screen and monitor drivers in departments of driver’s licenses, doctors’ offices, and clinical settings. It allows agencies to administer thousands or millions of clock drawing tests on computers. As a computerized device, it effectively saves significant time, paper, labor, and costs associated with administering, scoring, and interpreting results of the traditional paper-based clock drawing tests. The Automatic Clock Drawing Test ™ offers great potential for fitness-to-drive evaluations to reduce crashes and high-profiled tragedies involving dementia drivers.
Undetected cognitive impairment (CI) and dementia are among the greatest challenges to face the health care system today. This study reported cutoff scores, which is a big breakthrough. More than half the subjects, aged 64 to 99 years, were referred for medical evaluation on the basis of their Automatic Clock Drawing Test ™ scores. The researchers also found significant consistency between the test results and crash history of drivers. Each driver who reported a crash failed at 10% or more. Scores and completion time for these automated tests were directly linked with age.