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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)

#131

Post by Cpoll »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #125
emmelaich wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That would normally make sense, but Alzheimer's treatments don't significantly prolong life. You'd also expect to see the same effect with other medical professionals.

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

#132

Post by saltcured »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #125
emmelaich wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It seems like you could get into roles with a duty of care, logistic and deadline planning, social contact, etc.

And try to control with so many other non-transport occupations like nurses, therapists, hairdressers, air-traffic controllers, etc.

Ironically, the transport aspect reminds me of a prior correlation I read about for truck drivers and higher rates of colon cancer. There were speculative theories as to whether it was from the hours sitting or something like the chronic vibration.

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

#134

Post by randomNumber7 »

RichardLake wrote: post #78
gobdovan wrote: post #19

Earlier 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?

Only for high level strategy I would say. Generally you have to process lots of visual information and decide/act fast according to it.

There is a small mini-map where all heroes currently visible on the map are shown. A high level player would for example reason: "I saw the enemy carry farming there 30 seconds ago, so right now he is likely in that area".

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

#135

Post by tom86150 »

Mordisquitos wrote: post #120
jgilias wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure about Waze, but the combination of AI + TikTok/shorts/etc sounds like “not great” for long term brain health.

Indeed. My comment about Google Maps (and Waze, etc.) exacerbating Alzheimer's was mostly in jest and an exaggeration, but I'm absolutely certain that there is a statistically significant proportion of society whose current overuse of "AI" chatbots and short video consumption will result in cognitive deterioration if it continues at their current rate. To be clear, I'm not implying that usage of LLMs or viewing poten…

[dead]

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

#136

Post by bitwize »

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.

A friend of my wife's suffered a stroke recently. One of the first signs something was really wrong was she took a circuitous route around town to get home, then called her husband and said "I'm lost, I don't know where I am". She was parked in her own driveway.

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

#137

Post by m3kw9 »

if you had signs of dementia you maybe quicker being found out in these professions because you'd take too much time/get lost etc. Which means you are not in the taxi/ambulance profession when you have dementia. So there is survivor bias in this test?

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

#138

Post by JoeAltmaier »

Cpoll wrote: post #131
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That would normally make sense, but Alzheimer's treatments don't significantly prolong life. You'd also expect to see the same effect with other medical professionals.

Diagnosis helps put them into the data set. Even increased diagnosis would skew the statistics. Those that died of Alzheimer's and didn't know it, aren't in the study.

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

#139

Post by dyauspitr »

fn-mote wrote: post #2

The 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.

I’ve always been horrible at spatial reasoning. If I take two right turns and then a left, I have no idea where anything is. I’ve anecdotally always found a correlation between “cool” people and sound spatial reasoning. I’ll probably get Alzheimer’s when I’m 35.
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