Stopping behavior in a VR driving simulator: A new clinical measure for the assessment of driving

Proceedings of the 28th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBS'06, pp. 4921-4924.The driving privilege is a critical component of independent living for individuals who have acquired a brain injury. To date, measures of driving capacity following neurological compromise remain limited to gross performance measures, such as subjective behind the wheel evaluations. The current study demonstrates the use of a virtual reality (VR) driving simulator to provide objective and precise measures of driving behavior not previously available for clinical assessment. Driving performance related to Stop Sign (SS) intersections are compared between adults with and without acquired brain injury. The findings indicate that new driving performance measures can be calculated with VR driving simulations, and that these measures may have further implications for examining driving capacity following neurological compromise