“Rarely” might be headline exaggeration

“After adjusting for age, sex, race, ethnicity and education, roughly 1 in 100 taxi and ambulance drivers died of Alzheimer’s, compared with 1 in 60 people overall.”

There is mention of a study showing that the brain is changed “under sustained navigational demand” in support of this result

The news article

https://theconversation.com/taxi-drivers-rarely-die-of-alzheimers-how-complex-mental-maps-and-spatial-reasoning-protect-your-brain-286650

The paper

https://www.bmj.com/content/387/bmj-2024-082194

Use it or lose it?

Taxi drivers … prior to the introduction of Google Maps …

1 minute ago, iNow said:

Taxi drivers … prior to the introduction of Google Maps …

Good point!

1 hour ago, iNow said:

Taxi drivers … prior to the introduction of Google Maps …

And probably more importantly, GPS. Google maps is a matter of convenience as compared to paper maps, but still requires some navigation skill.

The amount of navving I've done from vague directions, memorized maps, or wilderness treks with a compass, I guess I'm cognitively safe till 100 or so, barring strokes, parasitic infestation, or too much Netflix. What's funny (to my wife, anyway, who is too easily amused) is that I will occasionally lose track of the car in a large parking lot.

When I was in London, I did okay finding places, except for one occasion when the cabin lights failed in the Tube. Sitting in darkness as we rolled along I got nervous and grasped the arm of a fellow next to me. As we approached another stop, I asked, "Is this Cockfosters?"

"No," he answered, rather sternly, "It's mine!"

(Sorry. Been saving that one.)

2 hours ago, TheVat said:

The amount of navving I've done from vague directions, memorized maps, or wilderness treks with a compass, I guess I'm cognitively safe till 100 or so, barring strokes, parasitic infestation, or too much Netflix. What's funny (to my wife, anyway, who is too easily amused) is that I will occasionally lose track of the car in a large parking lot.

When I was in London, I did okay finding places, except for one occasion when the cabin lights failed in the Tube. Sitting in darkness as we rolled along I got nervous and grasped the arm of a fellow next to me. As we approached another stop, I asked, "Is this Cockfosters?"

"No," he answered, rather sternly, "It's mine!"

(Sorry. Been saving that one.)

I had to run that one through AI ...

You obviously had a dirty (or a guilty) mind.He must certainly have said "No,this is mine", meaning his stop.

(I wonder what the Alzheimer's mortality rate would have been for taxi passengers if they had thought to include it in their survey)

Edited 9 hours ago9 hr by geordief

12 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

Use it or lose it?

I'm in my 89th year and each day I do Wordle and the Daily Codeword. It's not much but I tell myself it helps keep the old grey cells active.

15 minutes ago, OldTony said:

I'm in my 89th year and each day I do Wordle and the Daily Codeword. It's not much but I tell myself it helps keep the old grey cells active.

+1