Editor's note: The blog post below was written by a student in the spring of 2016.
Many practitioner and doctors recommend the family dictate
when their elderly loved ones are not suitable to operate a vehicle anymore.
When a family has to notify a beloved, elderly person that they are no longer
suitable to drive, it can put an enormous strain of their relationship. Often,
in my personal experience, the elderly person puts up a fight and refuses to
stop driving. An elderly person not suitable to drive puts the elderly person
and other innocent people’s safety at risk. If an elderly person had to pass a yearly
driving test, a yearly mental exam, and a yearly physical exam after the age of
seventy, this could greatly decrease unneeded accidents and the emotional toll
that follows those accidents.
As
people age, their bodies are mentally and physically worn down. Elderly people’s
eyesight is worsened, hearing is worsened, mental health and memory are also
diminished. When their bodies become weaker and clumsier, elderly people tend
to fall more. A study was performed by the Archives of Gerontology and
Geriatrics making a connection between falling and memory loss. The author
stated that people over sixty had a substantial increase in the number of falls
they took in a year; the more falls an elderly person had, the more of a
substantial decrease they had in their eyesight (Nunes, 2014). Poor eyesight
can cause an elderly person that is driving to hit objects, people or other
cars. Elderly people driving with poor eyesight can put themselves and many
other people at risk of being hurt or even killed if the accident is bad
enough. Elderly people who are required to have their license renewed every
year could decrease the accidents substantially because vision loss for elderly
can happen very rapidly.
Elderly
people are also faced with mental illness such as dementia, memory loss, and
Alzheimer’s disease. A journal article, Aging
and Mental Health, stated the increased risk of these diseases and the
cognitive effect these diseases have on an elderly person’s mental state
(Chappell, 2008). A person who suffers from one of these diseases experiences
symptoms rapidly. These symptoms cause them to not remember where they are or
what they are doing, can cause them to get confused of directions, and get
scared when they cannot figure out what to do. If an elderly person were
driving when this happened, this could cause the elderly person to wreck or hit
someone, putting themselves and others at risk. Because the symptoms overcome a
person so rapidly, a mental health test every year could help prevent these
unnecessary accidents.
The
Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination conducted a study to prove
there was a substantial decreasing in hearing related to increasing age. The
study tested 15,606 participants of all different ages, races, and genders with
frequencies at 3 kHz, 4 kHz, and 6 kHz; the test concluded that as age
increased the hearing threshold of all the tested frequencies worsened (Parks,
2016). As hearing is worsened, it can make it harder or impossible for elderly
people with hearing problems to hear horns or other alerts drivers give to
prevent accidents. With not being able to hear the car horn’s warning, it could
cause an elderly person to cause more wrecks. Having a hearing test every year
can determine if the elderly are suitable to drive based on their hearing
conditions. This could help prevent unnecessary accidents, injuries, and even
deaths.
Taking
all of the precautions can save numerous lives. Saving theses lives will save
people from wasting time, save people from the emotional toll that can follow
these accidents, and save families from having to fight with their loved ones
if they are suitable to drive or not. The head of the Rehabilitation
Counselling Unit at the University of Sydney reported that 30 percent of people
faced negative psychological problems after being completely healed from being
in an accident (After the Crash, 2016). If an elderly person were to get in an
accident and the accident killed another person, they would have the potential
to be charged with vehicular homicide. Vehicular homicide would have a
financial toll on the elder, a mental and moral toll on the elder, a toll on
the victims and victim’s family involved, an emotional toll on all the first
responders, doctors, and nurses who have to treat the victims and elder after
the accident, and the accident would even take an emotional toll on the
lawyers, judge, and jury system involved in the legal aspect of it.
It is
often said by the counterview this would be defensive and disrespectful to make
our elders take a driving test every year. Many older people argue that it is
pointless and they know when they can no longer drive. But in 2012, The Center
for Disease and Control Prevention stated there were 5,560 elderly adults
killed and 214,000 adults were injured because of accidents caused by elderly
(Older Adult Drivers, 2016). Putting a law in place requiring elderly people
over seventy to renew could save thousands of lives. Is it worth risking
thousands of lives in fear that we may offend our elders?
If an
elderly person is not fit to drive, it is hard for family to have the power to
take the elderly off the road. Putting a law in place permitting not suitable
elders for driving could save thousands of lives. The law could also save the
emotional toll these accidents can have on the driver, the victims, and loved
ones of the driver and the victims.
References
After the Crash-
the mental battle. (2016, January 08). Retrieved April 20, 2016, from
http://www.rms.nsw.gov.au/geared/your_driving_skills/car_crashes/after_the_crash.html
Chappell, N. L.
(2008). Aging and mental health. Social
Work In Mental Health, 7(1-3), 122-138. doi:10.1080/15332980802072454
Nunes, B. P., de
Oliveira Saes, M., Siqueira, F. V., Tomasi, E., Silva, S. M., da Silveira, D.
S., & ... Thumé, E. (2014). Falls and self-assessment of eyesight among
elderly people: A population-based study in a south Brazilian municipality. Archives of Gerontology & Geriatrics,
59(1), 131-135.
doi:10.1016/j.archger.2014.03.004
Older Adult
Drivers. (2015). Retrieved March 30, 2016, from
http://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/older_adult_drivers/
Park, Y. H.,
Shin, S., Byun, S. W., & Kim, J. Y. (2016). Age- and gender-related mean
hearing threshold in a highly-screened population: The Korean National Health
and Nutrition Examination Survey 2010–2012. 11(3),
1-13. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0150783
No comments:
Post a Comment