Dementia: overlooked driving danger

File photo: Newspress.

File photo: Newspress.

Published Jun 24, 2015

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London - Countless people with dementia are continuing to get behind the wheel after slipping through the cracks of an outdated driving licence system, UK doctors say.

A senior GP said allowing some patients to drive was as dangerous as letting them “out with a shotgun”.

Leading members of the British Medical Association have called for an investigation into how far dementia impairs safe driving.

Dr Peter Holden, a GP and member of the BMA council, said that the licensing system and medical procedures are not keeping pace with the nation’s ageing population.

“My great concern is that one day someone will, God forbid, put a car into a line of children,” he said.

The doctor compared people driving with dementia to “marauding gunmen”.

He said that although he predicted the numbers of dangerous drivers are probably small – some five or six cases a year for each GP practice – even those numbers are unacceptable. “Those in the frontline know it’s an issue, most of us can say anecdotally in a practice that’s 8000 to 10000 [patients], it’s probably five or six cases a year,” he said. “But would you tolerate five or six gunmen marauding in a year? No you wouldn’t.”

He added: “There needs to be a mechanism for reporting dementia, or if you think it could be dementia. There needs to be an “anything else we suspect” question.”

Dr Holden will today propose a motion at the BMA annual conference in Liverpool calling for research into the “potential impairment of judgement of some elderly drivers”. If the motion is voted through by delegates, the BMA board of science – a respected medical research body – will be asked to compile a report.

THEY MAY SEEM OK TO DRIVE?

Dr Holden, who practises in Matlock, Derbyshire, said that people with mild dementia may seem to have good eyesight, hearing and motor skills – but may not be able to process the information they receive.

“Driving is a complex psychomotor activity requiring many faculties and they have to be integrated, and with dementia you can’t integrate,” he said. Under current rules everyone has to reapply to hold a driving licence at the age of 70. Those diagnosed with dementia or any significant medical conditions are meant to tell the DVLA so they can be assessed, but many do not.

Dr Holden said he would not suggest reforms until research had been done into the scale of the problem, but he said: “Everyone regards a driving licence as a right, but it’s a privilege, a privilege to hold a lethal weapon.”

Many people with dementia drive “by rote”, he said – learning a route by heart and following it faithfully. “The concern is, confront them with something sudden and they won’t be able to cope,” he added. The GP said it was impossible to calculate how many people with dementia are on the roads, because many do not declare their illness.

Alzheimer’s charities said it was perfectly possible for someone with dementia to drive safely. George McNamara of the Alzheimer’s Society, said: “Scaremongering is not helpful. A dementia diagnosis is not in itself a reason to stop driving.”

Andrew White, medical advisor to the DVLA, said: “Age alone is not a reliable indicator of a person’s fitness to drive. We investigate all valid concerns about a driver’s ability.”

More than 850 000 people in Britain have dementia.

Daily Mail

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