Aphasic adults and their decisions on driving: an evaluation

Abstract

This study evaluated the propriety of decisions by aphasic adults to avoid or to return to driving following a cerebrovascular accident. A comparison was made of a rehabilitation team's assessments of driving skills with a group of 10 aphasic adults who had chosen to return to driving without professional consultation and 10 aphasic adults who had not returned to driving. The Fisher Exact Probability Test found that the team-assigned driver and nondriver groupings agreed with the patients' own groupings with the relationship significant at p less than 0.005. This suggested patients had appropriately judged their own compentency to drive. Discriminant analysis of variables tested by the team suggested language performance alone was not the most cogent indicator for driving candidacy.