Medical Conditions and Driving: A Review of the Literature (1960 – 2000)
TRD Page
Foreword
Acknowledgements
Section1: Introduction
Section 2: Vision
Section 3: Hearing
Section 4: Cardiovascular
Section 5: Cerebrovascular
Section 6: Peripheral Vascular
Section 7: Nervous System
Section 8: Respiratory
Section 9: Metabolic
Section 10: Renal
Section 11: Musculoskeletal
Section 12: Psychiatric
Section 13: Drugs
Section 14: Aging Driver
Section 15: Anesthesia and Surgery
Appendix A
List of Tables
List of Figures
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Section 2: Vision

  • 2.1 Acuity
            2.1a. Static Visual Acuity
            2.1b. Dynamic Visual Acuity
            2.1c. Low Vision and Telescopic Lens
  • 2.2 Cataracts
  • 2.3 Color Vision Defects
  • 2.4 Contrast Sensitivity
  • 2.5 Diabetic Retinopathy
  • 2.6 Glaucoma
  • 2.7 Loss of Vision in One Eye (Monocular Vision)
  • 2.8 Macular Degeneration
  • 2.9 Nystagmus
  • 2.10 Night Myopia
  • 2.11 Post-Surgery
  • 2.12 Visual Field Defects

The driving task is a highly visual one. It has been estimated that 90 percent of information used while driving is visual (Hills, 1980). Despite the apparent relationship between good visual function and safe driving performance, research has failed to find a strong relationship between the two. As noted a number of years ago by Burg (1971), there are at least five reasons for the reported weak relationship between visual functioning and driving performance. These include: (1) vision is but one factor affecting driver performance, (2) the disparity between an individual’s visual capacities and the extent those capacities are used or needed in driving, (3) a lack of validity between tests used in research and the visual demands of driving, (4) the possibility of low reliability of the criterion measure of driving, and (5) methodological shortcomings of studies assessing the relationship between visual functioning and driving performance. A number of excellent reviews of the literature are available on vision and driving. The reader is directed to those for a general review of the literature (Charman, 1997; Owsley and McGwin, 1999), and for a review of visual changes with age (Kline, Kline, Fozard, et al., 1992; Kline and Scialfa, 1996: Owsley and Ball, 1993; Shinar and Schieber, 1991).

A number of conditions can affect visual functioning. The literature on those conditions is reviewed below. Additionally, a summary of the current fitness-to-drive guidelines (Visual Conditions/Diseases) for medical practitioners from Australia (1998) and Canada (2000) is presented in Table 1.

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