[Isl] FW: ENGAGE 2.0 funding opportunity: NIH Aging, Driving and Early Detection of Dementia, $2.5 million, 5 yrs, deadline 10/22/19

[Neil Charness]

Hi Folks:

This call requires a multidisciplinary team approach.  If you have an interest, let me know and I’ll schedule a meeting to discuss this further.  It also is a nice fit with the University Transportation Center, ASAP, here at FSU.

Best, Neil

Neil Charness, Ph.D., William G. Chase Professor of Psychology
Director, Institute for Successful Longevity www.isl.fsu.edu<http://www.isl.fsu.edu/>
Department of Psychology, Florida State University
1107 West Call Street, Tallahassee, Florida, USA 32306-4301
Phone (office): 850-644-6686; Fax: 850-644-7739
E-mail: charness at psy.fsu.edu<mailto:charness at psy.fsu.edu>; http://www.psy.fsu.edu/~charness/

Please Note:
Due to Florida’s very broad public records law, most written business communications to or from FSU staff and/or any public college or university employee are public records, available to the public and media upon request. Therefore, this e-mail communication may be subject to public disclosure.

Aging, Driving and Early Detection of Dementia (R01 Clinical Trial Optional)
NIH/NIA
RFA-AG-20-022
$2.5 million
5 years
posted 06/11/19
application 10/22/19
expires 10/23/19

https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-AG-20-022.html<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__grants.nih.gov_grants_guide_rfa-2Dfiles_RFA-2DAG-2D20-2D022.html&d=DwMGaQ&c=HPMtquzZjKY31rtkyGRFnQ&r=CYRsm9C_r32RIuYi11MWPRPWKJe6CyxUDAD8OIZdiDs&m=UtZpvvZ2qj-JPca0P6Hqnf9w3Rq4bXl3lH_6X80Z2uo&s=wZiZzgNuhzPz5X5KbUU7mVCduLkyevLlRJtrrPSOyR4&e=>

Driving is vital to the everyday functioning of many older adults and, whereas the percentage of age-eligible licensed drivers has decreased over the past decade among young adults (16-24 years of age), that percentage has increased for adults over age 60, with the increase being most prominent among elderly women. Thus, older adults constitute an increasingly larger proportion of licensed drivers, and this is troubling in the face of age decrements in driving performance as revealed in both naturalistic and simulated driving. Recent research has shown that older adults with high amyloid/tau burden, but without measurable cognitive decline, exhibit deficits in driving performance compared with older adults without such burden. This raises the question of whether aspects of driving behavior might be monitored to detect early signs of cognitive impairment/dementia.

The challenge of ascertaining ‘fitness to drive’ is complex, and families and health professionals who provide services to elderly drivers are often tasked with difficult conversations about driving cessation. The criteria for age-related driving cessation have been extensively debated, but a recent report by the Veterans Administration Workgroup on Driving Safety for Veterans with Dementia advocates that persons with moderate to severe dementia should not drive due to safety concerns (December 2017). The policies and procedures for driving cessation remain unspecified and controversial, but conversations focused on this topic will benefit from objective data as envisaged in the proposed concept. It is noted that driving licensure is state-based rather than federal; thus, states differ in the criteria used for ascertaining fitness-to-drive, and this has practical implications for the findings that may arise from the research supported in this initiative.

If successful, this concept will promote basic research into the use of currently-available automobile technology as a passive-detection system for flagging potential age- and/or disease-related aberrant driving that may signal cognitive impairment even before standard clinical tests do so. Ultimately, this information could inform decisions about an individual’s fitness to drive, especially when coupled with other relevant information about the driver’s functional status such as mobility, co-morbid conditions, and health.

This initiative will support new research on automobile technology for signaling early signs of cognitive impairment in older drivers. Specifically, applications are invited for research on using automobile technology, coupled with other modes of assessing an individual’s health/functional status, to detect early signs of cognitive impairment. Two general kinds of research are envisioned: 1. Basic research on identifying unobtrusive technology for monitoring driving performance and integrating it with other data to detect cognitive decline, and 2. Methodological research on integrating driving-related data (and databases) with data on an individual’s health and functional status to detect cognitive impairment.

Integrative and multidisciplinary science is solicited with this funding opportunity. To be responsive, applications must include interdisciplinary research teams (e.g., data scientists, human factors engineers, computer scientists, psychologists, and/or physicians) that focus on data integration, age-related driving performance, and dementia.

This initiative addresses NIA’s goal to “understand the basic behavioral, social and psychological aspects of aging and well-being” as well as NIA’s AD/ADRD milestone 9.H: Launch research programs to develop and validate sensitive neuropsychological and behavioral assessment measures to detect and track the earliest clinical manifestations of AD and AD-related dementias. [2012 AD Summit: 3D; 2017 Dementia Care Summit: 2.3, 2.5]

A recent NIA workshop entitled, “Cost-effective Early Detection of Cognitive Decline” (October 2017) did not explicitly address driving as a potential candidate but emphasized the importance of sampling everyday activities as a basis for signaling potential cognitive impairment related to Alzheimer's disease and Alzheimer's disease-related dementias (AD/ADRD). Properly instrumented vehicles provide the opportunity for passively monitoring aberrant driving activity that may signal cognitive impairment. Technological advances in driving and driver safety have ushered in new opportunities for monitoring in vivo driving behavior. A properly equipped automobile provides extensive data about driving performance that can be gathered via the automobile’s under-dash computer port. Recent research has shown that such technology can be used in conjunction with other in-car technology, such as Global Positioning Systems (GPS), to pinpoint the exact location of driving-related incidents such as accidents, near collisions, etc., but the algorithms needed to harness the myriad data streams associated with this kind of technology are complex and costly. This initiative is intended to promote research that exploits the data provided by these systems and combines it with other information about an individual’s health and functional status to yield early-warning signs of cognitive impairment.

Examples of the kind of research anticipated include, but are not limited to, the following:

·        Studies that utilize already-existing information (including ongoing longitudinal studies, archival data from motor vehicle administrations, and other sources of driver records) in conjunction with information about an individual’s functional cognitive status
·        Studies that propose new data collection for addressing the goals of this funding opportunity
·        Studies that propose new data integration/analysis methods for attaining the goals of this initiative
·        Studies comparing driving in older adults who are cognitively normal versus older drivers with cognitive impairment (e.g., mild cognitive impairment or pre-clinical AD/ADRD)

It is important to emphasize that the current initiative is focused on age-related impairment in automobile driving. Thus, although normal age-related cognitive decline is associated with changes in driving performance that are material, possibly remediable, and certainly important, this particular initiative is focused on detecting aberrant age-related changes in driving that may signal cognitive impairment, meaning a state that is likely the result of some kind of abnormal or pathological process. In older adults, AD/ADRD (but also possibly mild cognitive impairment) is associated with deterioration in driving skill, and, perhaps because driving is so difficult, it might be one of the earliest domains where functionally significant changes may be detected.

Within the context of the current initiative, any assessment of a driver’s performance will be released only to the study participant unless there is consent on the part of that individual to release driving performance findings to others. This is to acknowledge potential privacy concerns related to assessing an individual’s driving performance within the context of research funded under this initiative. Broader ethical issues related to human subjects research in the context of driving must be explicitly considered in the application.

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