Dickerson, Anne EDucharme, Alec2024-01-162023-122023-12-05December 2http://hdl.handle.net/10342/13266Rationale: Driving is an important, complex instrumental activity of daily living (IADL) with one of the most important skills being able to multitask. Multitasking is a skill assessed by few standardized assessments. The most well-established measures, while there is some literature linking them to fitness to drive, have no resemblance to driving. Interactive driving simulators present an opportunity to function as an alternative assessment of multitasking that bears a greater resemblance to driving. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the use of the DriveSafety™ interactive simulator and a functional object detection (FOD) protocol as an assessment of multitasking. The goal was to answer the questions: 1) is the performance of individuals on a driving-simulator assessment of multitasking correlated with their fitness-to-drive, and 2) does the performance of individuals on a driving-simulator assessment of multitasking differ between medically at-risk and healthy controls? Methods: Data were collected from a group of medically at-risk adults (N=124) and a group of healthy control adults (N=131) from the DriveSafety™ simulator. These data were used as a measure of participants’ multitasking abilities. Data on fitness to drive classification for the medically at-risk adults was determined with a comprehensive driving evaluation. Simulator outcomes were compared both between medically at-risk and healthy control participants and between fit to drive and unfit to drive participants. Results: Chi-square analyses found a significant difference (p<0.0001) in simulator performance between fit to drive and unfit to drive individuals. Chi-square analyses also found that there was a significant difference (p<0.0001) in simulator performance between medically at-risk and healthy control individuals. Conclusions: Differences in simulator performance between the medically at-risk and healthy control groups were consistent with the available literature, helping to validate the driving simulator protocol as an assessment of multitasking ability. Furthermore, the simulator results being closely linked to fitness to drive means that occupational therapists could use this assessment to inform their recommendations regarding fitness to drive and/or whether it may be appropriate to see a more skilled occupational therapist driving rehabilitation specialist.application/pdfenDrivingMultitaskingOccupational TherapyDriving SimulatorCommunity MobilityDriving EvaluationMaster's Thesis2024-01-11