title: Slower adaptation to driving simulator and simulator sickness in older adults.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Methods of assessing driving abilities in the elderly are urgently needed. Although the driving simulator (DS) appears to be a safe and cost-effective method of objectively evaluating driving performance, it may pose adaptation problems for elderly adults. In this study, we examined age-related adaptation deficits on the DS.
  
  
  METHODS
  Healthy young adults (n=15) and healthy elderly persons (n=17) completed some neuropsychological tests, and then performed a road-tracking task with the DS, which was repeated four times (Trials 1-4).
  
  
  RESULTS
  After simulated driving in DS, simulator sickness (SS) was observed in 18.8% of participants. The frequency of SS was 29.4% in elderly adults and 6.7% in young adults, and 17.6% of the elderly participants dropped out of the experiment. Performance on the Necker cube copying task was significantly correlated with the onset of SS. Driving performance also showed a significant interaction between group and trial, for both driving accuracy and vehicle speed. In addition, the performance of elderly adults significantly improved between trials 1 and 4, reaching a plateau in trial 4, whereas that of young adults did not change across trials.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study provides preliminary evidence of slower adaptation to a DS-based driving task by older adults, which was associated with cognitive aging. Age affected driving accuracy and velocity when a road-tracking task was simply repeated. It is concluded that the capacity of elderly people to adapt to DS environments should be taken into consideration when evaluating their performance on DS tasks.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine, Japan. n-kawano@med.nagoya-u.ac.jp
authors.forename: Naoko
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kawano
authors.forename: Kunihiro
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Iwamoto
authors.forename: Kazutoshi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ebe
authors.forename: Branko
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Aleksic
authors.forename: Akiko
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Noda
authors.forename: Hiroyuki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Umegaki
authors.forename: Masafumi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kuzuya
authors.forename: Tetsuya
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Iidaka
authors.forename: Norio
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Ozaki
mesh_terms: D000222:Adaptation, Physiological / Q000502:physiology*; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D001334:Automobile Driving / Q000523:psychology*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009041:Motion Sickness / Q000209:etiology* / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*