東北大医短部紀要　11(1): 25〜36，2002

高齢者の認知機能と運転行動の関係について
―― Trail Making Testと運転シミュレータを用いての検討 ――

堀川悦夫， 田野通保*， 大門敏男**
丸山将浩***，岡村信行***， 松井敏史***
荒井啓行***，佐々木英忠***，樹神　學****

　　東北大学医療技術短期大学部 総合教育
　 *データ・テック
　**リスクマネジメントセンター
***東北大学大学院医学系研究科 老年・呼吸器病態学講座
****こだまホスピタル


Relationships between Cognitive Ability and Driving
Behavior in Elderly People: Using Trail
Making Test and a Driving Simulator

Etsuo HORIKAWA*, Michiyasu TANO*, Toshio DAIMON**, Masahiro MARUYAMA***,
Nobuyuki OKAMURA***, Satoshi MATSUI***, Hiroyuki ARAI**, Hidetada SASAKI**
and Manabu KODAMA****

General Education, College of Medical Sciences, Tohoku University,
*Data Tec Co. Ltd.
**Risk Management Center Co. Ltd.
***Department of Geriatric Medicine, Tohoku University School of Medicine,
****Kodama Hospital

Key words: Cognitive ability, Driving behavior, Trail making test, Driving simulator


　　Driving in elderly people is one of the important problems from points of view with quality of life, mobility in elderly people and social safety. In order to examine the predictability of risks of traffic accident, we measured performance in driving simulation task and cognitive functions in healthy community dwelling older drivers 56 years or older. The results showed that aging effects were observed in driving performance and their cognitive processing time. The mental workload measured with trail making test A and B showed greater individual differences than the processing time. Regression analysis revealed weak but significant correlation between processing time and number of errors in driving simulation task. Trail making test is easy to administer and useful to estimate the cognitive ability in elderly people.