Investigator:
Micheal Milburn and William DeJong, Impairment Science, Inc. Anuj Pradhan and Shannon Roberts, UMass Amherst.
MassAITC Cohort: Year 2 (Aging)
The Druid app was designed to measure cognitive and physical impairment from a variety of sources (e.g., prescription drugs, sleep deprivation/exhaustion, alcohol use, etc.). Druid uses multiple Divided Attention Tasks (DATs) that measure cognitive-motor behaviors including reaction time, decision making, hand-eye coordination, time estimation and balance. The Druid tasks enables measurement of the level of impairment of abilities identified as critical to driving.
This project aims to validate the Druid app for use by adults aged 64-85 years who may be experiencing declines in cognitive-motor performance due to normal aging. We will compare assessments provided by the Druid impairment to senior adults’ performance on the UMass/Amherst Human Performance Lab’s Realtime Technology driving simulator. We propose to validate both the 3-minute and 70-second Druid apps against Realtime Technology’s full-scale cab driving simulator which records multiple aspects of driving performance, including but not limited to longitudinal and lateral velocity, braking force, reaction time, and driving errors.
We anticipate that Druid can ascertain marked declines in cognitive and motor performance indicating that a senior adult should not drive on a particular occasion, no longer drive altogether, or should obtain a medical evaluation or be tested on a driving simulator to make that determination. Because senior adults’ cognitive and motor functioning can vary day to day, having a reliable, valid, and easy-to-use tool like Druid will contribute significantly to senior adults’ health, safety, and quality of life.