Objective: To investigate the relationship between on-road driving remediation and achieving fitness to drive following acquired brain injury.
Design: Randomized controlled trial.
Setting: Tertiary hospital outpatient driver assessment and rehabilitation service, Australia.
Participants: Thirty-five participants (54.3% male), aged 18-65 years, 41 days-20 years post-acquired brain injury (including stroke, aneurysm, traumatic brain injury) recommended for on-road driving remediation following occupational therapy driver assessment were randomly assigned to intervention (n = 18) and waitlist control (n = 17) groups.
Intervention: Intervention group received on-road driving remediation delivered by a qualified driving instructor in a dual-control vehicle. The waitlist control group completed a 6 week period of no driving-related remediation.
Main measure: Fitness to drive rated following the conduct of an on-road occupational therapy driver assessment with a qualified driving instructor where outcome assessors were blinded to group allocation.
Results: The intervention group were significantly more likely to achieve a fit to drive recommendation than no driving specific intervention (p = 0.003).
Conclusion: Following comprehensive assessment, individualized on-road driving remediation programs devised by an occupational therapist with advanced training in driver assessment and rehabilitation and delivered by a qualified driving instructor are significantly associated with achieving fitness to drive after acquired brain injury.
Keywords: Driver assessment; acquired brain injury; driving rehabilitation; occupational therapy; on-road driving remediation; stroke; traumatic brain injury.