Fafouti O., Papadimitriou E., Beratis I., Kontaxopoulou D., Fragkiadaki S., Stamatelos P., Yannis G., Papageorgiou S., “The traffic behavior of pedestrians with mild Alzheimer’s Disease or Mild Cognitive Impairment in urban areas, and its neuropsychological predictors”, Proceedings of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) 104th Annual Meeting, Washington, 5-9 January 2025

The aim of the current study was to investigate how patients with mild Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), or 2 Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) behave as pedestrians (velocity, orientation, crossing at junctions) 3 compared to cognitively intact elderly, as well as to explore whether neuropsychological tests 4 examining attentional, executive and visuospatial abilities could be a predictive factor of pedestrian 5 behavior for these patients. Fifteen participants with mild AD, 15 patients with MCI and 15 healthy 6 elderly pedestrians were asked to take a short walking trip outside of the University General Hospital 7 ‘’Attikon’’ in Greece, allowing recording their behavior in real – life traffic conditions. They also 8 underwent a neuropsychological evaluation. According to the applied One – Way ANOVA, the three 9 groups differed significantly in the variables of orientation and velocity, but they did not differ in 10 crossing behavior. AD patients were found to be more disorientated and slower as pedestrians in 11 contrast with MCI patients and healthy elderly. MCI patients appeared to be slower than healthy 12 elderly but there was not any significant difference in orientation between these two groups. Finally, 13 attentional, executive and visuospatial tests were more strongly associated with crossing decisions at 14 junctions and with walking speed. Our findings suggest that patients with mild AD do have deficits in 15 their traffic behaviour. These deficits can be predicted by neuropsychological tests measuring 16 attention, executive and visuospatial abilities.