A Wayne State University professor from the Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences has initiated a comprehensive resource on driver rehabilitation and community mobility services for occupational therapists, students and driver rehabilitation specialists.   

In Driver Rehabilitation and Community Mobility: Principles and Practice, Joseph Pellerito, Jr.  responds to the increased accessibility of adaptive technology for persons with disabilities and the growing elderly population.   As editor and author, Pellerito brings together 48 international experts in the health sciences examining the impact mobility has on what people with disabilities, the elderly and their caregivers can do within the context of their daily lives.    

“My great-grandfather, Henry Ford, founded Ford Motor Company at a time when mobility was not assumed or taken for granted.  It was his dream to make mobility available to the average working man,” said William Clay Ford, Jr. in the book’s “Foreword.”  The chairman and CEO of Ford Motor Company expressed his appreciation to Pellerito “for the contribution he is making to explore the challenges of mobility for the disabled, their caregivers and aging drivers in his latest work.” 

Pellerito became interested in driver rehabilitation and mobility early in his 15-year career as a physical and occupational therapist.  “Driving provided my clients with more than the means to move from place to place.  It provided them with the means to preserve critical links to their communities and to the personal and professional ties that are necessary for a robust and vital social life,” he explained.   His experiences working with people with disabilities, the elderly and their caregivers motivated him to begin examining driver rehabilitation more closely, culminating in Driver Rehabilitation and Community Mobility. 

This comprehensive text includes an “Adapted Driving Decision Guide,” which addresses client’s transportation needs, physical and cognitive abilities and structural vehicle modifications, and adapted driving aids.  A CD-ROM,  bound in the book, provides additional resources.  Publisher is Elsevier Mosby, St. Louis, MO.   The book with the supplemental CD is being distributed around the world. 

Pellerito is director of the Occupational Therapy program in the Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences at Wayne State University . He also is a founder of a company committed to improving quality of life, enhancing self-reliance, and optimizing the health, safety, and well-being of people with disabilities, the elderly, and their caregivers by providing safe, functional and affordable assistive technology services and products.

A Detroit native, Pellerito began his work in the field of occupational and physical therapies in 1984 at the Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan, part of the Detroit Medical Center.  He currently is working on a doctorate at Wayne State University .  Pellerito graduated from Western Michigan University ’s Honors College in 1984 with a bachelor’s in occupational therapy, and earned a master’s in rehabilitation technology at Johns Hopkins University in 1994. 

The Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences is one of the founding colleges of Wayne State University.  It is committed to advancing the health and well-being of society through the preparation of highly skilled health care practitioners, and through research to improve health care practices and treatment from the urban to global levels.