Isn’t it cool that Grandma is still driving at her age?  Maybe not, according to the American Medical Association.

Having a driver’s license typically means independence to the elderly, but older drivers are involved in more vehicle crashes, and are more likely to die from accident-related injuries than their younger counterparts, according to the AMA.

Some data from the AMA to consider when older folks take the wheel:
— Injuries from motor vehicle accidents are the leading cause of injury-related deaths for people over 65.
— The death rate for drivers 85 and older is nine times higher than it is for drivers 25-69.
— The risk of death is so high because older drivers (75 and older) get involved in more crashes per mile than middle-aged drivers, and their injuries are more likely to be fatal because they are more frail than younger drivers.

 Some medical reasons driving up the crash rates for elderly drivers, according to the AMA:
— Vision, the primary sense used in driving, declines with age. Older drivers also experience glare, impaired contrast sensitivity and need more time to adjust to changes in lightness and darkness.
— Drivers need high-level cognitive skills such as memory, visual processing, attention and executive skills,  and some medical conditions associated with aging affect cognition.
— Declining motor function related to age and musculoskeletal diseases can affect the ability to drive safely and comfortably.

To help doctors assess the safety of their older patients on the road, the AMA  has released a new on-line guide at www.ama-assn.org/go/olderdrivers. The organization is also calling on all doctors to make driver safety a routine part of office visits for their elderly patients.

To see the AMA’s guide for older drivers (written for patients, rather than doctors) see:   http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/patients/patients.shtml.

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