Primary Health Tasmania: Driving and dementia

This session will equip general practitioners with tools and techniques to start conversations about driving and dementia early. Learn how to take appropriate collateral history, using cognitive assessment tools to help determine fitness to drive and reassess driving capacity in people with dementia. 

Driving safely requires a wide range of manual and cognitive skills. Dementia can affect driving ability in many ways with changes often starting subtly but getting worse over time. 

General Practitioners are often front and centre when the driving ability of a person living with dementia is in question. At this webinar you will hear practical tips from expert GP medical educators about the importance of beginning this conversation early, involving family and care-partners in the process, appropriate use of cognitive assessment tools and ongoing reassessment. 

This event is approved for 1.0 hours of Educational Activities for RACGP.

Learning outcomes:

• Recall frameworks helpful in assessing and caring for people living with cognitive impairment and dementia 
• Explain the impact that dementia can have on a person’s driving ability
• Apply national driving guidelines when assessing a person’s ability to drive.

Speaker information:

Dr Karen Savery is a Brisbane based GP who works in clinical practice, residential aged care and medical education. She is passionate about the education and mentoring of GPs, particularly in the area of aged care and dementia. She has worked with Dementia Training Australia to increase GP’s confidence in the recognition and management of dementia. 

Dr Steph Daly is a specialist GP in Dementia. She is a fellow of the Royal College of General Practitioners and has completed post-graduate training in Dementia Studies at the University of Bradford in the UK.  More recently since moving to Australia she has become an advocate for patients living with Dementia and has facilitated the practice she works at becoming one of the first dementia-friendly (Dementia Australia approved) GP surgery’s in Australia.