[Automobile driving and visual aptitude in 100 patients over 60 years of age]

To evaluate visual capacity and automobile driving in a sample of individuals over 60 years of age based on the visual function criteria as defined in the 29 May 1997 French Journal Officiel.

Drivers over 60 years of age were included in a prospective monocentric epidemiological study between January and March 2005. Binocular visual acuity and monocular visual acuity were measured in subjects with their optical corrections. Binocular or monocular visual field was tested depending on visual acuity results. Etiologies of visual acuity loss and visual field impairment of each eye were recorded in patients who did not meet the required criteria.

One hundred patients were included (mean age, 70.7 years +/- 7.12 years). Twenty-nine patients did not meet the required criteria (29%; 95% confidence interval=[20.1;37.9]). On these 29 patients, 20 (69%; 95% CI=[52.2;85.8]) were unfit for driving an automobile with potential reversibility, whereas nine (31%; 95% CI=[14.2;47.8]) were permanently unfit from a visual point of view.

The frequency with which patients ignore their poor distance visual acuity and the possibility of reversing the problem make it clear that the ophthalmologist has a role to play in detecting and informing patients.