Determining Patient’s Fitness To Drive A Growing Issue For Psychiatrists.

Medscape (5/6, Brooks) reported, “Determining when it is time for a patient to stop driving and hand over the keys is a growing issue for psychiatrists.” A poster presentation “at the American Psychiatric Association’s 2012 Annual Meeting highlights the fact that psychiatrists are ‘increasingly’ faced with patients whose driving ability may be impaired by excessive daytime sleepiness due to primary sleep disorders or to sleep disturbance associated with medical and psychiatric illness, such as dementia, epilepsy, or substance abuse.” What’s more, “patients with dementia are three to five times more likely to be involved in a motor vehicle accident than age-matched control individuals, and epilepsy is one of the most frequently implicated medical causes for motor vehicle accidents.”

Related Links:

— “Patients’ Fitness to Drive a Growing Issue for Psychiatrists,”Megan Brooks, Medscape Today, May 5, 2012.

Posted in In The News.