Vehicle driving for people with diabetic retinopathy: review and reflection on the current norms

Abstract

Diabetic retinopathy is a major public health problem and, although many attitudes can be developed in the field of prevention, this vascular complication is not treatable in its entirety. Regarding the adverse effects of the treatment of diabetes, hypoglycemia is the biggest risk to traffic safety in users of insulin or insulin secretagogues, which may result in conditions that range from tachycardia, tremors, increased aggressions, sweating, nausea, dizziness and attention failure, to visual clouding and syncope. If not corrected, it can cause central nervous system-related symptoms such as restlessness, incoordination, disorientation and diplopias, progressing to convulsions, coma and death by interfering directly in the act of driving a vehicle. Although there are several studies associating diabetes and risk of accidents, there are not enough to correlate diabetic eye disease as a cause of accidents.