Driving is often the key to independence with many older adults and family members struggling to make the best decisions around this ability and resource. Terry Cassidy, Occupational Therapist, certified Driver Rehabilitation Specialist for Fitness to Drive and owner of Health Promotion Partners shares this discussion with Maile Gray, Executive Director of Drive Smart as they talk about signs that driving may be at risk, the evaluation processes they use and most importantly how to transition out of driving and yet keep on living.
Aging with Altitude is recorded in the Pikes Peak region with a focus on topics of aging interest across the country. We talk about both the everyday and novel needs and approaches to age with altitude whether you’re in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida or Leadville, Colorado. The Pikes Peak Area Agency on Aging is the producer. Learn more at Pikes Peak Area Agency on Aging.
Transcript:
Today's episode is about transit and independence. My name is Michaela Nichols and I'm here with Terry Cassidy and Maile Grey. Terry is a licensed occupational therapist and a certified driver rehabilitation specialist at Health Promotion Partners. Miley is the Executive Director of Drive Smart Colorado.
Q - Can you both give a short introduction about what you do?
A – Sure. I'm the director like you said of a small community traffic safety education program. We’re a non-profit and we've been around since the 1980s. We have a series of programs, kind of from birth on up through you know teenage years, working with communities and we have a very, very, robust program geared toward the older driver. Our entire focus, our mission for the nonprofit, is to reduce crashes. Thus, reducing injuries and fatalities. So, our work with the older driver, is to focus on making sure that they drive as long as they can safely do so. So, we have some little tips we give presentations, we partner with Terry, and basically have a good time with the aging population.
Michaela - Thank you
Terry - I'm Terry and I'm the owner and operator of Health Promotion Partners. Our main program is the Fitness to Drive Program. And so, through that problem, we do driver evaluations. I really see our role as helping individuals and helping families to make decisions around driving. So, certainly when we’re talking about older drivers, really looking at skills related to driving, really helping people make decisions. Do they need to cut back, do they need to change some things, or maybe they need to find alternatives to driving in order to get around in the community?
Q - As people age, they can begin to experience decreased ability to safely drive. Can you talk about some of the signs that people may be losing the ability to drive safely?
Terry - Sure. You know there are definitely warning signs, and there's a list of them available, there are some good lists, we can give you some resources for those. but one piece I would like to mention, is it's not to me that ability or losing the ability drive, isn't related directly to age. so, there are factors like are physiologically that tend to be more common as people get older, but certainly when I’m looking at someone's ability to drive it's really about function more so then the date they were born. but in terms of the driving ability things that are commonly changing with age would be things like vision. the amount of light someone needs to have good vision. also, that reaction time, making quick decisions in the moment. sometimes some physical changes, neck range of motion can really impact safe driving in terms of being aware of what's going on around your vehicle. and even moving hand and foot movements can be issues there. I think in terms of warning signs that a family member would notice, or maybe someone drivers themselves, and things we ask families to keep an...
