Driving in Parkinson's disease - a health hazard?
BACKGROUND
The driving safety of Parkinson's disease (PD) patients has lately been questioned after several authors reported road accidents caused by sleep attacks in PD patients on dopaminergic medication.


OBJECTIVE
To determine 1) whether PD patients in general and those on dopaminergic medication in particular are especially prone to cause severe road accidents and 2) whether there are PD symptoms or dopaminergic side effects with the potential to compromise driving safety.


METHODS
Relevant articles were identified by electronic search of biomedical databases (1966-2002: MEDLINE, EMBASE, PASCAL, PUBMED), the Cochrane Controlled Trials Register, and reference lists of located articles.


RESULTS
Despite frequent occurrence of potentially hazardous dopaminergic side effects (2-57 %) and disabling parkinsonian non-motor and motor disabilities (16-63 %), the two existing studies on accident rates suggest that PD patients are not more prone to cause road accidents than the rest of the population. Five further reports including 1346 patients and focusing on dopaminergically induced sleep attacks provided comparably low accident figures (yearly incidence: 0%-2%). Because of low figures meta-analysis was intended but finally deemed inappropriate as the methodology of included studies varied greatly and was frequently flawed.


CONCLUSIONS
Further prospective community-based well designed studies on accident risk in PD patients are needed to provide evidence based driving recommendations.
Homann
C N
CN
Movement Disorder Center, Dept. of Neurology, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic. nik.homann@kfunigraz.ac.at
Suppan
K
K
Homann
B
B
Crevenna
R
R
Ivanic
G
G
Ruzicka
E
E
D000063:Accidents, Traffic / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D000978:Antiparkinson Agents / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000627:therapeutic use; D001334:Automobile Driving; D006970:Disorders of Excessive Somnolence / Q000209:etiology; D015259:Dopamine Agents / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000627:therapeutic use; D006801:Humans; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000187:drug effects*; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000188:drug therapy
D000978:Antiparkinson Agents; D015259:Dopamine Agents