Parkinson’s disease affects gaze behaviour and performance of drivers

• Autor(a) principal: Gotardi, Gisele C. [UNESP]
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Outros Autores: Barbieri, Fabio A. [UNESP], Simão, Rafael O. [UNESP], Pereira, Vinicius A. [UNESP], Baptista, André M. [UNESP], Imaizumi, Luiz F. [UNESP], Moretto, Gabriel [UNESP], Navarro, Martina, Polastri, Paula F. [UNESP], Rodrigues, Sérgio T. [UNESP]
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da UNESP
• Texto Completo: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00140139.2022.2028901; http://hdl.handle.net/11449/234158
• topic: ageing; driving simulator; eye movements; Parkinson’s disease; visual entropy

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of PD and ageing on gaze behaviour and performance of drivers in a simulated task. Ten drivers with PD, ten neurologically healthy older drivers, and ten neurologically healthy younger adult drivers were asked to drive in a car simulator for three minutes, maintaining car speed between 100 and 120 km/h and avoiding collisions. Driver’s eye movements were recorded. Drivers with PD had more collisions and spent less time driving within the speed zone than the younger-drivers. Drivers with PD performed an increased number of fixations towards task-irrelevant areas of the visual scene and higher visual entropy, indicating a more random gaze behaviour. Older drivers restricted their visual search to the lane area in order to detect threat-related stimuli. PD led to drops in performance of drivers in the car simulator. Practitioner summary: Parkinson’s disease (PD) and ageing process caused a drop in driving performance. Drivers with PD made fewer fixations on task-relevant information and showed higher visual entropy than young adults. Older drivers restricted their visual search to the lane than other areas of interest.