Dear Healthcare Professional,

Welcome to the Virginia Department for the Aging’s Virginia GrandDriver Healthcare Professional Toolkit. As you may know, seniors are the fastest growing population in the United States. By 2030, 25 percent of Virginia’s population will be seniors. Impaired skills associated with aging make it difficult for seniors to avoid automobile accidents, leaving senior drivers with the h ighest rate of fatal crashes per miles driven, next to teenage drivers.

Healthcare professionals and caregivers that treat senior aged patients are a vital element to keeping seniors safe behind the wheel for as long as possible. The Virginia GrandDriver Healthcare Professional Toolkit can help you begin the dialog with your patients about the importance of senior driver safety.

The Virginia GrandDriver Healthcare Professional Toolkit will provide you with key information about:

• how to recognize the signs that your senior patients’ driving capabilities have changed
• helpful senior driver safety resources and assessments
• testing centers and senior driver safety event details and locations
• the DMV Medical Review Form
• medical resources such as the American Medical Association’s Physician’s Guide to Assessing and Counseling Older Drivers
• The Alzheimer’s Association’s Driving with Dementia Guide

You can empower your senior patients with the tools they need to stay safe and mobile on the road, by encouraging them to contact Virginia GrandDriver. Virginia GrandDriver will provide them with self assessment tools, safe driving tips, information on regional driver safety events like CarFit, and access to Virginia GrandTrans (an online source to find public transportation options). Virginia GrandDriver can also help seniors locate local comprehensive senior driver safety assessment clinics across the state, as well as provide you with senior driver safety assessment specialists that can help you speak with your patients about driving cessation, when necessary.

With more than 15,000 senior driver-related accidents and more than 114 senior driver-related deaths per year on Virginia roads - it is imperative to talk to your patients. Virginia GrandDriver can help you begin this life or death conversation.

We hope this downloadable toolkit will be help you begin the conversation with your senior patients about safe driving. 

Thank you!

Download the Toolkit here