Cognition, Everyday Function and Driving Performance in Old Age

Download or read book Cognition, Everyday Function and Driving Performance in Old Age written by Katarina Fällman and published by Linköping University Electronic Press. This book was released on 2024-10-16 with total page 127 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The population of people aged 80 years and older is the fastest growing population in the world. Age is the main risk factor for many diseases and to be able to investigate and help old people when they have symptoms or increased difficulties in their everyday lives, there is a need of knowledge of normal functions and abilities in this population. The main aim of this thesis is to present normative data for established cognitive tests from cognitively healthy old persons, and to describe and investigate predictors of everyday function and driving performance in old age. The results are based on two projects, The Elderly in Linköping Screening Assessment and The Normative Study of Driving Ability in Old Swedes. Paper I presents normative data for four established cognitive tests measuring processing speed, attention and executive function, from participants that were longitudinally tested at 85, 90 and 93 years of age. There was no clinically important difference in test results due to gender, but educational level affected test results at 85 years of age. Age-related decline was present for most of the examined tests. Paper II presents normative data for age 85, 90 and 93 years for two tests of naming ability and verbal comprehension and investigate age-related changes from 85 to 93 years of age. Higher educational level was associated with better test results. Naming ability was found to be more sensitive to aging than verbal comprehension. Paper III describes difficulties and changes of everyday function between 85 and 90 years of age. Difficulties in everyday function increased significantly over the five-year period. Decline in everyday function was partly shown to be predicted by concurrent decline in processing speed and self-rated health. Paper IV describes driving characteristics of drivers aged 75 years and older and examines associations between driving performance and results on cognitive tests and driving habits. There was a large variation in driving performance among the older drivers and combined results on cognitive tests were found to be a more robust predictors of driving performance than age, although age was still a significant predictor.