The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety just started to recommend a new driver safety program called DriveSharp (see AAA and Posit Release Program to Improve Drivers’ Minds), developed by Posit Science. DriveSharp is a computerized cognitive assessment and training tool based on Karlene Ball’s research on older adults’ cognitive fitness and driving. 

In the press release for the agreement, Peter Kissinger, driver safety research and policy veteran and CEO of the AAA Foundation, says that “Part of making our nation’s roads safer is helping mature drivers who wish to stay active – a quickly growing population – maintain or improve their driving safety.”

We have Peter Kissinger with us to discuss the context for this innovative initiative.

Peter, I appreciate your time. In order to set the context, would you introduce the role and priorities of the AAA Foundation?

Sure. All your readers will know that AAA is the main driver association in North America, with over 50 million members. The AAA Foundation is focused on the research and policy required to improve driver safety and has 4 strategic priorities:
- Introduce a culture of traffic safety. It is an outrage that there is a driving-related death every 13 minutes in the US, and yet, we seem to accept this as status quo
- Improve road safety, especially on rural roads, where almost 60% of the deaths occur,
- Improve safety among teens, one of the highest risk groups
- Improve safety among seniors, another high-risk group.

In terms of driver-centered interventions, are your priorities are teenage and older drivers?

Yes. You have probably seen the U-shaped risk curve (Editor note: see figure at left) that shows how accident risks are very high among teenagers, then decrease and remain stable until our 60s, and then increase again.

We have promoted initiatives such as DriverZED (see www.driverzed.org) to help teenagers better identify and manage the typical sources of risk, so they advance faster through the learning curve. For older drivers we focus on how to balance the privilege of driving with the right of mobility – we know that losing driving independence can bring a variety of negative consequences for the individual.

Given aging population trends, it is clear we need to introduce better systems to balance those two goals you just outlined -safety and mobility. Do you think as a society we are prepared?

I don’t think we are, and I am pessimistic that we will be in the short term. This is a very important problem: official estimates say that the proportion of all drivers who are over 65 years of age will grow from 15% today to 25% in 2025.

Let me give you some background: two years ago we put together a workshop to identify the state of the research and the state of the practice of driver safety among Read the rest of this entry »

Given the current political climate, we are pleased to host this thought-provoking article by 2 of our Expert Contributors. Dear Mr or Mrs Next President: how can you help our minds take better care of our brains?

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Ask Not What The Health System Can Do For You…

– By Simon J. Evans, PhD and Paul R. Burghardt, PhD.

With the presidential debates gearing up again we are sure to hear more about health care. But we propose a slightly different question. In addition to asking how we can get more people healthcare coverage, we should also ask why so many people are sick in the first place.

The words of John Kennedy might today be, “Ask not what the health care system can do for you. Ask what you can do to reduce the health care burden”. But before delving into what we can do, let’s take a look at some realities that our next president could face in their first ‘State of the Union’ address.

Read the rest of this entry »

Today we are fortunate to interview Dr. Jerri Edwards, an Associate Professor at University of South Florida’s School of Aging Studies and Co-Investigator of the influencial ACTIVE study. Dr. Edwards was trained by Dr. Karlene K. Ball, and her research is aimed toward discovering how cognitive abilities can be maintained and even enhanced with advancing age.

Main focus of research

Alvaro Fernandez: Please explain to our readers your main research areas

Jerri Edwards: I am particularly interested in how cognitive interventions may help older adults to avoid or at least delay functional difficulties and thereby maintain their independence longer. Much of my work has focused on the functional ability of driving including assessing driving fitness among older adults and remediation of cognitive decline that results in driving difficulties.

Some research questions that interest me include, how can we maintain healthier lives longer? How can training improve cognitive abilities, both to improve those abilities and also to slow-down, or delay, cognitive decline? The specific cognitive ability that I have studied the most is processing speed, which is one of the cognitive skills that decline early on as we age.

ACTIVE results

Can you explain what cognitive processing speed is, and why it is relevant to our daily lives?

Processing speed is mental quickness. Just like a computer with a 486 processor can do a lot of the same things as a computer with a Pentium 4 processor, but it takes much longer, our minds tend to slow down with age as compared to when we were younger. We can do the same tasks, but it takes more time. Quick speed of processing is important for Read the rest of this entry »

Fun article in the San Francisco Examiner today on how High-tech ‘brain gyms’ tone minds, reduce stress. Quotes:

• “SharpBrains and Posit Science are just two of a growing number of start-up companies leading the way in the area of packaging and developing suites of software they call “brain gyms.”
• “SharpBrains offers a suite of products that evaluate buyers’ needs and target their weakness, gently pushing for improvement, Fernandez said. One program helps improve memory using a number game (here); another provides instant biofeedback to users so they can practice breathing and positive thinking to reduce stress (here), Fernandez said.”
• “I can start seeing the changes in my stress level take place right in front of my eyes,” said Baba Shiv (profile here), a neuroscientist and professor at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, who uses Freeze-Framer 2.0 (here), one of the programs licensed by SharpBrains. By monitoring his stress level through heart monitors hooked to his personal computer at work, he discovered that constantly monitoring his e-mail inbox raised his stress level, Shiv said. Now he limits himself to checking e-mail every two hours, Shiv said.

The reporter did a great job in understanding and communicating a new and sometimes complex topic. Read the article: High-tech ‘brain gyms’ tone minds, reduce stress.

You can learn more about the research on self-control of our advisor Baba Shiv in The Frontal Cortex blog’s article Self-Control is a Muscle and in Mind Hacks: (un)emotional investment.