People with Alzheimer’s disease have impaired driving abilities, which emerge in the early stages of dementia. A recent study showed that older individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) drove less than those with normal cognition, especially when it came to lengthy distances. According to the study’s findings, driving habits may serve as a digital biomarker for identifying cognitive impairment and related driving performance deficiencies.
Driving is more than a daily routine; it is a complex task that quietly tests memory, attention, judgment, and spatial awareness every time someone gets behind the wheel. Subtle shifts in how, when, and how far a person drives can reveal far more than changing preferences or lifestyle adjustments. Emerging research suggests that these changes may suggest early clues of cognitive health.
According to a recent study in Neurology, changes in everyday driving habits, as captured by a vehicle datalogger, may be a reliable way to differentiate between individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and those who are cognitively normal [1].
The current study’s findings demonstrate that data acquired by vehicle data loggers could be utilized to identify individuals at risk of a car accident or those with cognitive impairment before in-person cognitive exams or brain imaging studies.
Analyzing driving data patterns could also help evaluate the effectiveness of cognitive impairment interventions.
Cognitive Impairment Impacts Driving Performance
People with Alzheimer’s exhibit poor driving ability due to not only cognitive problems but also sensory and motor impairment.
Research has consistently demonstrated that people with Alzheimer’s disease are more likely to be involved in at-fault crashes than people with normal cognitive abilities [2].
Furthermore, studies indicate that this decline in driving performance begins in the early stages of dementia [3].
Studies have found that even older persons with MCI or early-stage Alzheimer’s disease exhibit deficiencies in driving ability in simulator and on-road driving tests [4].
Even those with normal cognitive function who exhibit elevated expression of Alzheimer’s disease biomarkers, such as increased beta amyloid protein buildup in the brain, tend to perform worse on driving tests [5].
These studies collectively imply that driving-related deficits occur in the early phases of MCI or Alzheimer’s disease, before symptoms worsen enough to warrant a diagnosis of dementia.
Family members and clinicians sometimes fail to notice the small changes in driving performance and cognitive function that occur in the early stages of dementia.
An in-vehicle tracking device or datalogger can help detect changes in daily driving habits, such as the time of trip commencement during the day or the number of trips, as well as potentially identify persons with driving performance and cognitive impairments.
Continuous monitoring of driving patterns may thus help select individuals for cognitive testing and later brain scans to identify dementia-related structural changes.
Changes in Everyday Driving Patterns in Older People
The present study used an in-vehicle tracking device to investigate how people with MCI differed from those with normal cognition in their daily driving patterns over a 40-month follow-up period.
The study included 298 individuals aged 65 or older who had a cognitive exam at enrollment and then annually. According to the preliminary cognitive evaluations, 242 participants had normal cognition and 56 had MCI.
The datalogger evaluated variables, including the number of trips, the time of the trip during the day, the distance traveled, the destination’s location, and the frequency of hard braking, hard cornering, and speeding.
Compared to their counterparts with normal cognition, older persons with MCI made fewer trips over the course of a 40-month follow-up period, particularly at night.
Additionally, participants with MCI were more likely to stick to familiar routes and avoid unfamiliar or unpredictable environments, and they were less likely to travel long distances. The frequency of hard cornering increased during the follow-up period in people with MCI.
According to the researchers, some of these changes in driving patterns—such as avoiding longer trips or unpredictable environments—may represent adaptive techniques used by people with MCI to offset the deterioration in their driving skills.
Conversely, more frequent occurrences of hard cornering may be due to the decline in driving performance.
Predictive ability of driving patterns
After determining the participants’ driving patterns using the in-vehicle datalogger, the researchers investigated whether these factors could predict their cognitive state.
The capacity of changes in driving habits to predict cognitive status could help in the early detection of people at risk of cognitive impairment and unsafe driving.
In this study, the researchers highly accurately estimated the participants’ cognitive health based just on their driving habits.
Furthermore, incorporating the data from cognitive evaluations, age, gender, race, education, and genetic predisposition increased the model’s accuracy.
Interestingly, compared to models based on cognitive test scores, sex, age, race, education, and genetic predisposition, the driving pattern-based model was more accurate in differentiating between people with and without MCI.
Although the researchers acknowledge that an external dataset is required to validate the ability of daily driving patterns to predict cognitive impairments, they propose that in-vehicle data sensors could offer valuable insights into changes in cognitive function during the time between yearly cognitive assessments.
Limitations of the Study
According to the researchers, these findings show that datalogger data could be useful in identifying people with cognitive impairment and at risk of a motor vehicle accident.
They did, however, point out that the study’s participants were mostly white and well-educated, which limited the generalizability of the findings.
Furthermore, factors other than those directly linked to MCI, such as caregiver input, social support, medication use, other medical conditions, and variables related to the type and condition of the vehicle, may also have an impact on the variations in driving patterns observed in the study.
Therefore, the driving metrics employed in this research need to be validated using an external, more varied sample.
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References
- Chen, L., Carr, D.B., Singh, R.K., Bekena, S., Zhu, Y., Taylor, K., Trani, J.F. and Babulal, G.M., 2025. Association of Daily Driving Behaviors With Mild Cognitive Impairment in Older Adults Followed Over 10 Years. Neurology, 105(12), p.e214440.
- Ott, B.R., Heindel, W.C., Papandonatos, G.D., Festa, E.K., Davis, J.D., Daiello, L.A. and Morris, J.C., 2008. A longitudinal study of drivers with Alzheimer disease. Neurology, 70(14), pp.1171-1178.
- Roe, C.M., Babulal, G.M., Head, D.M., Stout, S.H., Vernon, E.K., Ghoshal, N., Garland, B., Barco, P.P., Williams, M.M., Johnson, A. and Fierberg, R., 2017. Preclinical Alzheimer’s disease and longitudinal driving decline. Alzheimer’s & Dementia: Translational Research & Clinical Interventions, 3(1), pp.74-82.
- Hird, M.A., Egeto, P., Fischer, C.E., Naglie, G. and Schweizer, T.A., 2016. A systematic review and meta-analysis of on-road simulator and cognitive driving assessment in Alzheimer’s disease and mild cognitive impairment. Journal of Alzheimer’s disease, 53(2), pp.713-729.
- Roe, C.M., Barco, P.P., Head, D.M., Ghoshal, N., Selsor, N., Babulal, G.M., Fierberg, R., Vernon, E.K., Shulman, N., Johnson, A. and Fague, S., 2017. Amyloid imaging, cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers predict driving performance among cognitively normal individuals. Alzheimer Disease & Associated Disorders, 31(1), pp.69-72.
- Shukla, D. Certain changes in driving patterns may point to cognitive decline, dementia. Medical News Today. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/changes-driving-patterns-predict-cognitive-decline-dementia. Published Online: 28th December, 2025. Accessed: 19th February, 2026.
- Your Driving Habits Could Predict Cognitive Decline. Fisher Center for Alzheimer’s Research Foundation. https://www.alzinfo.org/articles/diagnosis/your-driving-habits-could-predict-cognitive-decline/. Published Online: 10th December, 2025. Accessed: 19th February, 2026.
