Exploring the association of the Comprehensive Trail Making Test with driving indexes in patients with Parkinson’s disease

The Trail Making test (TMT) has been identified as predictor of driving ability in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD). However, previous research has not explored the effectiveness of an alternative version of the TMT, namely of the Comprehensive Trail Making Test (CTMT; Reynolds, 2002) to show associations with measures related to driving fitness. Main objective of the current work was to evaluate the capacity of the CTMT to detect associations with fitness to drive related measures in patients with PD. Inclusion criteria were the presence of a valid driver’s license, regular car driving, a CDR score ≤ 0.5, and a Hoehn & Yahr score between 1 and 3. Twelve individuals with PD (Age: Mean = 63.75, SD = 10.50) and 12 cognitively intact individuals (Age: Mean = 63.50, SD = 10.43) were introduced in the study. Collection of data included a comprehensive neurological/neuropsychological assessment and a driving simulation experiment. Certain subtests of the CTMT were more strongly associated with a variety of driving indexes in individuals with PD as compared to the original TMT. In addition, according to the stepwise regression models that were applied, the CTMT was recognized as a more effective predictor of driving behavior than the TMT. The pattern of findings that was observed supports the usefulness of CTMT on detecting associations with fitness to drive related-measures in patients with PD. Underlying factors that may explain the effectiveness of the CTMT could be related to the greater variety of set shifting and inhibition processes that this alternative option integrates as compared to the original TMT.