Online Course: Driving Transitions with Older Adult

Practitioners are in an excellent position to frame and lead discussions on driving behavior, to help the client adjust to life without driving a personal car, and to help the family and client to develop realistic transportation alternatives. This course provides both driving self- screening tools for driver use and professional screening tools that can improve interventions with the client and family. It also provides links to information about the transportation needs of older people.

Practitioners can help to screen the older person's functional capacity and suggest ways to maintain safe driving, including driving retraining or occupational and physical therapies that can improve functional capacity. Practitioners' communication skills and knowledge of community resources for getting around can help the client and family with important decisions when driving is no longer safe for the older adult.

Early discussions about safe driving by practitioners help facilitate smoother transitions from driving to other options before a decision is forced on the older person after a crash. These early discussions make any future decisions about safe driving less traumatic for both the older individual and the family member, and provide an opportunity for planning for future mobility choices.

Useful discussions with older adults about changing driving behavior or retiring from driving altogether depend on the practitioner's understanding of the medical and cognitive changes that can accompany aging, and the very real emotional losses that can follow when driving is no longer an option. Prepared practitioners bring to the discussion a thorough knowledge of the transit alternatives available in their community, particularly those that offer senior-friendly services.

This course was developed by IGSW* with support from the American Society on Aging (ASA), and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

*IGSW is now the Center for Aging & Disability Education & Research

To register, please visit: http://www.bu.edu/cader/browse-catalog/course-descriptions/driving-transitions-with-older-adults/

Center for Aging & Disability Education & Research's (CADER) course catalog features more than 50 accredited online courses in aging, as well as an Online Certificate in Aging. Courses are:

CADER is an approved continuing education provider of the National Association of Social Workers

Visit CADER's website for more information about CADER online courses.

10/09, rev 3/16