The premise for this research question is related in part to work from Dr. Eleanor Maguire (who I just learned died last year at only 55) and her team on hippocampal anatomy and careers involving spatial navigation, including taxi drivers. A connection that may be of interest to HN readers: Demis Hassabis was one of Maguire's doctoral students, although he does not appear to have worked on the project most relevant to this study.
Alzheimer's disease mortality among taxi and ambulance drivers (2024)
121–130 of 146 posts
Re: Alzheimer's disease mortality among taxi and ambulance drivers (2024)
#122I'm not sure if this relates to how the brain stores/process navigation information, or how does it uses/manages that information "in-motion."
For example, I know my city very well and can navigate through it with no GPS help.
But, according this study, ship captains, whom uses more complex navigation and spatial mechanisms, are amongst the most affected ones, maybe this is actually about "decision-making."
Re: Alzheimer's disease mortality among taxi and ambulance drivers (2024)
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
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... ).
Hmm, never played LoL myself but is keeping track of were the opposing hero can be given were you last saw them a big part of the strategy?
That description is accurate, but that's more of an attention management problem then of a navigation problem. You have to infer information about opponent positioning based on partial information, while also moving your character with repeated clicks, each click requiring precision (and more of your attention).
It's more like poker in real-time with timers than to remembering a whole city infrastructure or planning a full route.
If LoL trained you for ambulance work, the world would look something like: there are 5 hospitals, 3 patients, 15 roads; a hospital inspector goes from hospital to hospital, panicked hospital managers open that hospital for 5 hours after inspector is about to arrive; you have another ambulance friend that tells you from time to time info about last inspector location or how panicked the managers looked; infer open hospitals and inspector location such that your patient survives, while you also have to maintain a high Candy Crush score on your phone non-stop.
Re: Alzheimer's disease mortality among taxi and ambulance drivers (2024)
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
Will we see a drop in alzheimers when the open world gaming population reaches that age? I mean, I can not just navigate my city, but multiple worlds!
I’m not sure because in many modern open world games you are just like a Uber driver following GPS from checkpoint to checkpoint. It would with old school games that relied on memorizing the world and had minimal or even no map indications.
I feel like a dark souls game has a similar learning pattern where you need to memorize the move sets of bosses. It taps into that dynamic pattern recognition that traffic would cause for taxi drivers
DayZ is another one because there is no in-game GPS. You have to use maps and compasses to figure your route and many people can spot an exact area on the massive map by a picture of a bush
Re: Alzheimer's disease mortality among taxi and ambulance drivers (2024)
#125The 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.
What are some possibilities? 1. Those with spatial reasoning are less likely to develop Alzheimers 2. Ambo and Taxi drivers are less likely (for some reason) to develop Alzheimers AND their work leads them to develop good spatial reasoning. Any others? One consideration is that those with jobs requiring long periods of concentration drink less. Among other things.
Ambulance drivers were close to medical professionals and got good, early diagnosis and care.
Taxi drivers were exposed to a wide variety of people who they conversed with, became aware of Alzheimer's symptoms and treatments and sought help early.
Off the top of my head.
Re: Alzheimer's disease mortality among taxi and ambulance drivers (2024)
#126The 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.
A causal link is easy to imagine. An Alzheimer's onset makes one unfit to work as an ambulance driver, they switch to a less demanding job. When, years later, the person dies, the death is not counted towards ambulance drivers.
Re: Alzheimer's disease mortality among taxi and ambulance drivers (2024)
#127Let's hope flying cross country using pilotage has a similar benefit, if one truly exists.
Re: Alzheimer's disease mortality among taxi and ambulance drivers (2024)
#128The 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.
What are some possibilities? 1. Those with spatial reasoning are less likely to develop Alzheimers 2. Ambo and Taxi drivers are less likely (for some reason) to develop Alzheimers AND their work leads them to develop good spatial reasoning. Any others? One consideration is that those with jobs requiring long periods of concentration drink less. Among other things.
I'm sure that the study accounted for this, but some fun ones
1. Ambo and Taxi drivers are vastly more likely than the general population to die in a collision before Alzheimers gets to them. 2. Even if you control out collisions, driving an Ambo and Taxi requires enough more memory and cognitive functioning to survive that people with early Alzheimer symptoms are significantly more likely to die in a collision, meaning you've controlled out a good chunk of ALzheimer victims in the process.
Re: Alzheimer's disease mortality among taxi and ambulance drivers (2024)
#129The 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.
A causal link is easy to imagine. An Alzheimer's onset makes one unfit to work as an ambulance driver, they switch to a less demanding job. When, years later, the person dies, the death is not counted towards ambulance drivers.
> death certificates included a field for reported usual occupation (the occupation in which the decedent spent most of their working life), generally completed by a funeral director with help from the decedent’s informant
Re: Alzheimer's disease mortality among taxi and ambulance drivers (2024)
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had the same thought, but occupation on the birth certificate is the "usual" occupation the person held.
Isn't that the point? People whose cognitive abilities were already slowly declining would likely look for another job that was less demanding. Sorry if I am misunderstanding you.
The implication is that if you spent 30yrs as an ambulance driver, followed by 10 years working retail, the death certificate will say "ambulance driver."