[Driving licence renewal in persons with Parkinson disease]

The legal requirement to renew a driving licence is feared by most symptomatic or already formally diagnosed individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD) as the medical assessment they are required to submit may eventually conclude in withdrawal of their driving licence.

The purpose of our study was to gain information about PD patients applying for a driving licence renovation and their willingness to uncover his or her illness to medical personnel in charge, and how often current medical assessment procedures proved unable to detect abnormalities among parkinsonian applicants who retain data on their health status. Using a confidential, 'face-to-face' questionnaire, we obtained information from 62 licensed parkinsonian drivers (32 current drivers) and 120 age and sex matched drivers controls gathered from an identical socioeconomic background.

Thirty eight individuals with symptomatic PD (in 30 of who the disorder has been already diagnosed) applied with a view to licence renovation. Drivers with PD did not retain information regarding their health status more often than sex- and age-matched control drivers with various other chronic ailments as 63.1% and 77% respectively, abstained from declaring (z = 0.945; p = 0.344). A parkinsonian subject illegally managed to renew his driving licence without submission to any medical assessment. The attending physicians perceived abnormalities related to motor difficulties in 30.4% of those parkinsonian who withdrew information. A similar proportion of controls (29.1%) were also informed about health problems during their medical assessment, in the vast majority related to sight problems.

Overall, the exam concluded in cancellation of the driving licence in 10.8% of the parkinsonian and 1.6% of the controls, a significant difference (z = 2.075; p = 0.03). We conclude that at the time of renewal of a driving licence parkinsonian patients do not retain problems related to fitness to drive more often than the general population afflicted by other medical conditions do. However, current tests for driving performance appears to be not sensitive enough to detect selective difficulties in motor execution tasks that may impair driving ability in persons with PD.