Researching the Brain & Enhanced Road Tests for Over 80

Brain Canada researchers along with ones from the world renowned Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel are teaming up to better understand the brain and its disorders. One-and-a-half million dollars will support up to three team grants of half-a-million each over two-years. Professor Rony Paz of the Weizmann Institute from Israel and Brain Canada’s President and CEO Dr. Viviane Poupon’s in Montreal joins Bob Komsic to discuss. AND How old is too old for one to be driving? The province is considering introducing an enhanced road test for those over 80. Currently, drivers have to renew their licence every two years after reaching that milestone. The renewal process involves attending a senior driver education session that involves a vision test and having to draw a clock which measures cognitive abilities. It does NOT examine motor function and co-ordination, concentration, hearing ability, spatial perception, and reaction time. Ministry of transportation research in 2020 showed more than one-third of drivers older than 80 who passed the clock-drawing test could not pass a road test. The recommendation is for the introduction, by 2026, of an enhanced road test that could combine driving manoeuvres of a standard highway test with additional scoring to gauge cognitive abilities related to safe driving. The Zoomers’ advocacy group CARP and its chief policy and operating officer Bill VanGorder thinks the province should reconsider.