Aging and Driving Part I: Implications of Perceptual and Physical Changes

By the year 2030 one in every five Americans will be 65 years of age or older. Although future older adults are likely to be healthier and more active than their peers of today, age-related changes are inevitable and are bound to affect functional abilities especially as they relate to driving. With regard to physical changes, the driving task predominantly involves the execution of motor responses that are clearly subject to age-related declines. Furthermore, with age, a number of changes occur in the human eye that make the visual system operate less efficiently. In addition, declines in the performance of the auditory and vestibular systems and in spatial abilities also compromise driving and mobility. The present paper provides a review of age-related declines in physical and perceptual functioning and discusses their impact on the driving performance and safe mobility of older adults