Everyone’s driving habits alter as they age and you might recall a comment from a child or friend that you were going too slow. Scientists says those changes in some people indicate an early stage of Alzheimer’s disease.
Researchers from the University of Toronto and Washington University School of Medicine used Global Positioning System-based (GPS) location-tracking devices on a group of people over-65 in Missouri who agreed to have their driving closely monitored for one year.
By using the results, the researchers were able to design a model that could forecast someone’s likelihood of having preclinical Alzheimer’s using merely their age and their GPS driving data. It proved to be 86 per cent accurate.
Around half of the 139 people over 65 years already had very early or “preclinical” Alzheimer’s disease. The other half did not.
The study showed those with preclinical Alzheimer’s disease tended to drive more slowly, make abrupt changes, travel less at night, and logged fewer miles overall. They also visited a smaller variety of destinations when driving, sticking to slightly more confined routes.
“How people move within their daily environments, ranging from the places they visit to how they drive, can tell us a lot about their health,” lead researcher Ms Bayat told the BBC.
“Using these very few indicators… you can really, with very high confidence, identify whether a person has preclinical Alzheimer’s disease or not,” says Ms Bayat.
The prediction was 90 per cent accurate when it also added in the results of a genetic test for Alzheimer’s disease known as apolipoprotein E (APOE) genotyping that indicates whether you may have an inherited risk for the disease.
Not sure if I want to be tracked but it is a good indicator if someone’s driving becomes erratic.
