How someone drives says a lot about how someone is put together and how thought processes work. American researchers say it could also reveal early signs of dementia.
Studying driving behavior may play a major role in the early detection of dementia. That is what scientists from various universities in the US say. They used algorithms to study the driving behavior of the elderly. Although the research is not aimed at detecting dementia but at the effects of age and medical conditions on driving behavior, it is now also the other way around by studying driving behavior that an underlying ailment can be identified.
According to the study, there is some evidence that atypical changes in people’s driving habits could be early signs of dementia. For the research, LongRoad (‘Longitudinal Research on Aging Drivers’), data from 2,977 participants was recorded over a 45-month period. The researchers could see with an accuracy of up to 88 percent whether there was early dementia.
Based on these results, the researchers believe that early detection of mild memory disorders and dementia in older drivers should eventually become widely possible in practice. This can be done by combining the algorithm based on driving behavior characteristics with the demographic characteristics and integrating it into a smartphone app or other devices.