Alzheimer's disease mortality among taxi and ambulance drivers (2024)
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Re: Alzheimer's disease mortality among taxi and ambulance drivers (2024)
#2The rate of fatality for Alzheimer’s among ambulance and taxi drivers is 3x lower than the general population. This is not observed in other transportation-related careers.
The connection is believed to be the spatial reasoning involved in routing. No causative link is suggested.
Re: Alzheimer's disease mortality among taxi and ambulance drivers (2024)
#3Would love to see a study looking at people who spend significant time in video games that require spatial navigation.
That could even be a form of therapy after diagnosis (which seems to become easier with biomarkers).
Re: Alzheimer's disease mortality among taxi and ambulance drivers (2024)
#4Hey! Its time to make some crazy money! Are you ready? Here we go!
Re: Alzheimer's disease mortality among taxi and ambulance drivers (2024)
#5I immediately go to these two thoughts:
- Is significant life-long usage of real-time mental spatial navigation protective?
- Are those who end up in these positions self-selected for better than average real-time mental spatial navigation and that above average performance correlates with protection against Alzheimer's.
Re: Alzheimer's disease mortality among taxi and ambulance drivers (2024)
#6That's a pretty positive spin on this statistic that ambulance drivers and taxi drivers die much younger than many other professions
Re: Alzheimer's disease mortality among taxi and ambulance drivers (2024)
#7So why not bus drivers? Supposedly because their routes are fixed?
Re: Alzheimer's disease mortality among taxi and ambulance drivers (2024)
#8Would be interesting to see whether spatial reasoning from gaming shows the same association.
Re: Alzheimer's disease mortality among taxi and ambulance drivers (2024)
#9One of the first signs that a somebody has Alzheimer's is that they'll get lost. E.g., they've been attending church on Thursdays nights at the same chapel for 15 years, but suddenly they forgot how to get home after a recent service. Part of the reason for the findings in the current study is that people quit those professions when they feel themselves starting to struggle.
Re: Alzheimer's disease mortality among taxi and ambulance drivers (2024)
#10Would love to see a study looking at people who spend significant time in video games that require spatial navigation. That could even be a form of therapy after diagnosis (which seems to become easier with biomarkers).
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