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Alzheimer's disease mortality among taxi and ambulance drivers (2024)

bmj.com

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Re: Alzheimer's disease mortality among taxi and ambulance drivers (2024)

#11

Post by aetherspawn »

jimmar wrote: post #9

One 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.

Is the profession cached in the data when they leave the job? And does the data attribute 2 entries for someone with 2 careers. That’s the question I think

Re: Alzheimer's disease mortality among taxi and ambulance drivers (2024)

#13

Post by smelendez »

aetherspawn wrote: post #11
jimmar wrote: post #9

One 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.

Is the profession cached in the data when they leave the job? And does the data attribute 2 entries for someone with 2 careers. That’s the question I think

They explain it in the article. Someone, often the funeral director filling out the death certificate, asks what the deceased did for most of their working life.

I’m a little skeptical of the category “ambulance drivers; not emergency medical technicians” as reliably coded, because people will often say so-and-so “drove an ambulance” when they were actually an EMT or paramedic. But it’s also not clear to me that would invalidate the findings.

Re: Alzheimer's disease mortality among taxi and ambulance drivers (2024)

#14

Post by joecool1029 »

I was really expecting this to be higher not lower due to factors like particulate inhalation from exhaust/brake dust/tire particles. Also there's a lot of sedentary-type problems you get while taxi driving like bad diet habits that are not conducive to brain health.

Dunno, did taxi driving for a few years. Mostly suburban for a small fleet, not gigging. I'm thinking newer drivers that rely on smartphones for navigation won't get the same benefit.

I seem to recall that at least some populations of taxi driver they have exams like The Knowledge (https://london-taxi.co.uk/the-knowledge/) where changes in structures of the brain can be measured after learning it.

Re: Alzheimer's disease mortality among taxi and ambulance drivers (2024)

#16

Post by rudhdb773b »

bhouston wrote: post #5

I 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.

I think your 2nd point is less likely.

Anecdotal, but I've spoken with many taxi and ride-share drivers, and my impression is that their decision to seek out and continue that line of work is almost always driven by outside economic considerations. I've never heard someone base their decision on their ability to perform the job.

Re: Alzheimer's disease mortality among taxi and ambulance drivers (2024)

#17

Post by shawn_w »

academicfish wrote: post #15

I assume that was a generation that didn’t use Google Maps.

At my most recent EMS job ("ambulance driver" is considered insulting), the younger people couldn't navigate anywhere without mapping it. Some of them brought up being amazed that I could get to every hospital in our area from pretty much anywhere without having to bring it up on my phone (random houses and nursing homes were a different story).

Re: Alzheimer's disease mortality among taxi and ambulance drivers (2024)

#18

Post by jjcc »

It seems a lot of people already know that. I remember their's a claim that Taxi drivers hipocampus is larger than average people. A memory method called "Memory palace" or "Method of Loci" exists for 2 thousand years exploiting human's navigation capability.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci

Re: Alzheimer's disease mortality among taxi and ambulance drivers (2024)

#19

Post by gobdovan »

smallnix wrote: post #3

Would 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).

Vsauce did a video about how League of Legends can affect spatial navigation and the brain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RHsAUyFCAM It seemed a bit odd to me since LoL isn't especially navigation-heavy, but Michael from Vsauce later confirmed he was actually playing LoL (they just weren't allowed to name it or show it directly - https://www.reddit.com/r/vsauce/comments/7igkve/what_game_do...).

Re: Alzheimer's disease mortality among taxi and ambulance drivers (2024)

#20

Post by hamstergene »

sowbug wrote: post #8

Would be interesting to see whether spatial reasoning from gaming shows the same association.

This is indeed interesting because rotating 2D screen is not necessarily the same type of brain processing as experiencing things fly around you. Even VR is not necessarily the same, because knowing you're safe may be different from taking the situation seriously. Could be same, could be completely different.

But the first massively popular 3D games started end of 90s which means Alzheimer cases for them will pop up only around 2060 or later (average onset year 75 minus being 15 years kid during 90s).

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