University of Surrey

Small Grants2024

14 Mar

Written By Lynne Dickens

In the driving cessation decision seat: Feasibility and acceptability of a UK driving aid for older adults within dementia services

Amount awarded

£49,093

Due to complete

2026

Making roads safer for…

Drivers

Project summary

A third of people with dementia drive. However, dementia impacts cognition, memory, reaction time and other capacities needed for safe driving. Driving cessation becomes inevitable for people with dementia and informal and formal carers can be influential in shaping the timing and outcome of driving decisions. However, family and healthcare professionals find initiating conversations on driving competence, self-regulation strategies and driving cessation challenging and, until now, there have been few guides/decision tools to help professionals and family members with these discussions.

This study will use mixed methods to explore the feasibility, acceptability and merits of using a new UK-adapted dementia driving decision aid (DDDA-UK). DDDA-UK has undergone proof of concept testing with early results suggesting that it can help people with dementia to continue driving safely and has the potential to help those losing capacity for being safe on the road to cease driving at an appropriate time. However, it has not been used or evaluated in real-life settings, such as NHS memory services for people with dementia.

The project will determine the current levels/ type of driving cessation support provided by memory services in Surrey and whether DDDA-UK and the methods used to evaluate it are suitable for scaling up and rolling out across England.

Organisation website →

South East

Lynne Dickens

Spot On Creative is a Northants-based creative team who have the hard-earned skills, expertise and industry knowledge that only come from having worked for years in advertising. It’s all managed by Lynne Dickens who has over 20 years’ experience in marketing communications, and ten years in website design and build, and creative team project management.

Lynne is also a qualified art historian and has some expertise in curating fine art exhibitions and producing all of the catalogues, posters and supporting material to create a successful event.

All the guys in our team have worked for one-man bands, SMEs and large blue-chip multinationals in just about every sector, field and industry. We can come up with great ideas, superb design and copy, and exceptional photography for anything from websites to email campaigns, branding to brochures – and everything in between.

And the beauty of Spot On Creative is that we’re big in creativity, experience and knowledge, but small in overheads and invoices. So we’re a much more sensible and affordable option for you than a larger advertising agency or marketing company.