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American Morning
Paging Dr. Gupta: Elderly Drivers
Aired July 17, 2003 - 08:25 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Yesterday's crash has raised some concerns about the ability of elderly drivers to handle a car after eyewitnesses in Santa Monica described the driver as appearing confused and out of it.
Medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta is with us this morning -- hey, Sanjay, nice to see you.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.
The two most accident prone groups in the United States are teenagers -- no one's surprised about that -- and people who are 65 years plus. And you do get more accident prone with age. That's what the safety data will suggest.
Lots of different reasons for this, and most of them are pretty obvious. Take a look at the list here of things that happen to people a they get older. There's a decreased response time. There's a decreasing clarity of vision and hearing. Muscle strength and flexibility go down, an ability to focus and concentrate and tolerance for alcohol.
There's also several sort of telltale signs that might give a little bit of an indicator that a driver may have trouble -- easily frightened, easily becomes drowsy, drifts lanes, ignores other cars and pedestrians, one plus accidents or near misses, as well, telltale signs.
It's an interesting situation here, Soledad. I was reading and haring the eyewitness reports and things like that. It sounds like he was a little bit out of it when he came there. But he was clearly awake and things like that. Supposedly he didn't have any troubles with driving before. So sort of a little bit harder to sort of piece this together.
From a medical standpoint, there are things that also happen with age, such as mini strokes, maybe even mini seizures. Could something like that have happened? That answer may come out with time.
O'BRIEN: Yes, it's unclear now and, of course, the investigation continues, at least that's what the police are telling us right now at the scene there.
GUPTA: That's right.
O'BRIEN: Let's turn and talk about allergies. It affects millions of people and there's a new study that was looking into whether coverings for dust mites, which I guess trigger lots of allergies, really helped. It turns out that doesn't.
GUPTA: That's right -- well, it's sort of interesting. Now, I've got to be careful here, because we've talked to a lot of experts on this. You're absolutely right, dust mites, something that really is in most households, can trigger a lot of allergies and a lot of severe asthma. Forty to 60 percent of people who have these significant allergies or asthma also have an existing condition allergy to these dust mites.
So for a long time the conventional wisdom in the medical community was let's use these impermeable covers, essentially these covers that you put on your pillows and your bedding and stuff like that to try and keep those allergens from actually getting in. You can see some of the pictures there.
But the question was, the right question that you asked, do they work or not? And that's exactly the subject of two studies out of the "New England Journal of Medicine." After these studies were concluded, this is what the researchers, the final quotes or the concluding quote was. "Allergen impermeable covers as a single intervention for the avoidance of exposure to dust mite allergens seem clinically ineffective in adults."
So, of course, we called the researchers and said what does this really mean for people? And they say, you know, no one says use this only as a single intervention. You've got to talk about all sorts of different interventions, reducing your level of exposure to whatever the allergen is, humidifiers, washing your bed coverings, removing clutter, all these sorts of things.
This might be an effective part as an overall spectrum combating allergies and asthma, but as a single intervention it doesn't seem to do much.
O'BRIEN: All right, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, nice to see you.
GUPTA: Nice to see you.
O'BRIEN: Thanks, as always.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired July 17, 2003 - 08:25 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Yesterday's crash has raised some concerns about the ability of elderly drivers to handle a car after eyewitnesses in Santa Monica described the driver as appearing confused and out of it.
Medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta is with us this morning -- hey, Sanjay, nice to see you.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.
The two most accident prone groups in the United States are teenagers -- no one's surprised about that -- and people who are 65 years plus. And you do get more accident prone with age. That's what the safety data will suggest.
Lots of different reasons for this, and most of them are pretty obvious. Take a look at the list here of things that happen to people a they get older. There's a decreased response time. There's a decreasing clarity of vision and hearing. Muscle strength and flexibility go down, an ability to focus and concentrate and tolerance for alcohol.
There's also several sort of telltale signs that might give a little bit of an indicator that a driver may have trouble -- easily frightened, easily becomes drowsy, drifts lanes, ignores other cars and pedestrians, one plus accidents or near misses, as well, telltale signs.
It's an interesting situation here, Soledad. I was reading and haring the eyewitness reports and things like that. It sounds like he was a little bit out of it when he came there. But he was clearly awake and things like that. Supposedly he didn't have any troubles with driving before. So sort of a little bit harder to sort of piece this together.
From a medical standpoint, there are things that also happen with age, such as mini strokes, maybe even mini seizures. Could something like that have happened? That answer may come out with time.
O'BRIEN: Yes, it's unclear now and, of course, the investigation continues, at least that's what the police are telling us right now at the scene there.
GUPTA: That's right.
O'BRIEN: Let's turn and talk about allergies. It affects millions of people and there's a new study that was looking into whether coverings for dust mites, which I guess trigger lots of allergies, really helped. It turns out that doesn't.
GUPTA: That's right -- well, it's sort of interesting. Now, I've got to be careful here, because we've talked to a lot of experts on this. You're absolutely right, dust mites, something that really is in most households, can trigger a lot of allergies and a lot of severe asthma. Forty to 60 percent of people who have these significant allergies or asthma also have an existing condition allergy to these dust mites.
So for a long time the conventional wisdom in the medical community was let's use these impermeable covers, essentially these covers that you put on your pillows and your bedding and stuff like that to try and keep those allergens from actually getting in. You can see some of the pictures there.
But the question was, the right question that you asked, do they work or not? And that's exactly the subject of two studies out of the "New England Journal of Medicine." After these studies were concluded, this is what the researchers, the final quotes or the concluding quote was. "Allergen impermeable covers as a single intervention for the avoidance of exposure to dust mite allergens seem clinically ineffective in adults."
So, of course, we called the researchers and said what does this really mean for people? And they say, you know, no one says use this only as a single intervention. You've got to talk about all sorts of different interventions, reducing your level of exposure to whatever the allergen is, humidifiers, washing your bed coverings, removing clutter, all these sorts of things.
This might be an effective part as an overall spectrum combating allergies and asthma, but as a single intervention it doesn't seem to do much.
O'BRIEN: All right, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, nice to see you.
GUPTA: Nice to see you.
O'BRIEN: Thanks, as always.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
