Employers who monitor the driving behaviour of staff may be able to support their employees’ long-term health by recognising early signs of Alzheimer’s disease.

Washington University in St Louis conducted a study to see if changes in driving habits are an accurate indication of early or ‘preclinical’ Alzheimer’s disease.

Global Positioning System-based (GPS) trackers and custom software were used to monitor the driving behaviour of 139 people in Missouri aged over 65. Before data was collected, medical tests identified that half of the participants had preclinical Alzheimer’s and the other half did not.

Analysis of the driving of those with and without early Alzheimer’s revealed clear differences. Specifically, drivers with preclinical Alzheimer’s tended to:

• drive more slowly
• make more abrupt changes
• drive to a smaller variety of destinations
• travel less at night
• drive less overall

The Driving Real-World In-Vehicle Evaluation System (DRIVES) study recorded date, time, latitude and longitude coordinates, and speed every 30 seconds when a vehicle was being driven. One year of GPS driving data was also included for each participant to account for season variability.

Researchers used the data to design a model that could forecast a person’s likelihood of having preclinical Alzheimer’s to 86 per cent accuracy by using age and GPS driving data.

According to PhD candidate at the University of Toronto Sayeh Bayat, the study has introduced the possibility for employers who use driver monitoring to contribute to employees’ long-term health and wellbeing.

“To support employees’ health, companies that monitor driving patterns can take advantage of this unique opportunity to detect neurodegenerative diseases in a timely fashion, in those individuals who are interested to take part.”

In the case of UK law, companies can use GPS tracking devices in their vehicles under certain conditions; employees must know they are being tracked, must give their consent to being tracked, must only be tracked during working hours, and recorded data must be dealt with in accordance with GDPR.

According to Bayat, the signs of Alzheimer’s can happen up to 20 years before the clinical diagnosis of the disease.

“I really believe this can be a huge advance in Alzheimer’s research because it can lead to consumer-grade technologies that are able to detect and monitor Alzheimer’s disease progression from the early stages to the dementia phase, and potentially intervene when interventions are most effective,” Bayat says.

The National Health Service (NHS) advises preventative measures for Alzheimer’s disease such as maintaining cardiac health and remaining socially and mentally active, but there are currently few drugs available to treat the disease and funding has traditionally been low.

According to the Alzheimer’s Society, the total cost of dementia to the UK is an estimated £26 billion a year but only £90 per patient per year is spent on dementia research.

Recent years have seen an increase in funding, with annual UK government investment in dementia research increasing from £28.2 million in 2010 to £82.5 million in 2018.

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