4 ms·

Case point only 2, but I can see slow but steady decline in my parents after their 50s. No addiction like alcohol or tobacco, no neuro-degenerative diseases, th

Case point only 2, but I can see slow but steady decline in my parents after their 50s. No addiction like alcohol or tobacco, no neuro-degenerative diseases, they just became slower, grumpier, more and more detached from 'the edge of society'. Now they are in their 60s and same work they did all their life (leading economical department of 3 high schools with various rental properties, manager at metal engineering company having at one time 300 subordinates), they would barely manage. Memory starts to go down too. At this rate, it will last them well into 90s to be OK for anything ordinary life can bring, but to ignore this is to ignore reality right in front of me. Maybe there is some other factor, like constant hard training of the brain by having ever-evolving creative work instead of kind of same office work, or some other aspect.

rjh29 5y ago
My mum is a teaching assistant and is 71. She seems as sharp as ever and mood is the same. I think it's key that she still works full-time in a very social environment and keeps active outside of work. It's pretty clear to me that mental health declines rapidly once you start isolating and staying indoors all the time.
- reactor 5y ago
  Yes pretty much, loneliness is a silent killer. Its so 'silent' that you won't even notice that you are declining but interestingly others will notice.
  - bigDinosaur 5y ago
    Although it has been difficult to ascertain exactly the relative weights of stress, anxiety, frustration, and so on due to the past two years, I think a large part of my current cognitive difficulties are stemming from social isolation. Do not recommend. It turns out that even extremely introverted people do very badly when isolated which I suppose is kind of an involuntary (for whatever reason) situation. I am young, so I hopefully have not caused any permanent issues with my time of isolation - I shudder to think what it would do to me if I were 60 and facing the physical decline of old age.
    - olivermarks 5y ago
      Physical decline is hugely variable and arguably primarily a function of genetics. I would also argue some people's 'mental speed' was never that great - humans are hugely variable in performance, strength and weaknesses which makes me doubt the 'until after 60' concept. I have a 92 year old mother who is very good mentally for example compared to many people half her age...
      - bigDinosaur 5y ago
        It'd be a hugely unethical experiment to do, but I suspect we'll have quite a bit of data coming out of areas that did full lockdowns for extended periods of time (that were enforced) over the past two years. We should, if the theory that isolation causes cognitive decline is true, see a general decline in certain populations and it should diverge from matches around the world etc.
        traceroute66 5y ago
        > It'd be a hugely unethical experiment to do Hugely unethical, but also not scientifically sound. COVID infection itself has already been demonstrated in various papers to cause mental decline (TL;DR there seems to be a correlation between how "sick" you got and the amount of decline). There is also the unknown of long-term post-COVID-infection consequences on the brain. So you would have a bit of a hard time trying to seek to attribute lockdowns to mental decline. Especially, as we know, COVID can manifest itself as an asymptomatic disease. You then have the additional question of what are you going to count the infectious isolation period as ? It would not be ethical to count it as "lockdown". Basically it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible to achieve any sort of statistical segregation between "lockdown" and "COVID". Thus your input data would be messy, and per the GarbageIn-GarbageOut rule, so would your "conclusion".
        bigDinosaur 5y ago
        I don't agree that it's not 'scientifically sound', it just depends on what signals the data actually shows. Natural experiments are never perfect and with something like isolation it's probably impossible to ever see such natural experiments without major confounders. I don't see why that makes you abandon the idea that anything can be learned at all.
- traceroute66 5y ago
  > My mum is a teaching assistant and is 71. She seems as sharp as ever and mood is the same. I think it's key that she still works I agree. I don't necessarily buy the "loneliness" argument for cognitive decline. However I certainly buy the importance of keeping mentally and physically active. Infact I would go as far as saying people who use the "loneliness" term are actually just using it as a lazy synonym for "lack of mental and physical activity". You don't necessarily need to surround yourself with people to achieve it. Whether its still working in a job, or doing non-job activities such as gardening, travelling, photography, I think keeping your brain busy and your body moving is the key. If you revert to the cliché retirement image of taking long naps during the day, stopping only to eat and watch daytime TV, then IMHO that's where the problems start.
  - reactor 5y ago
    I tend to disagree. Mental and Physical activities require intent and effort. At older stage, your willpower alone will not push you to make you get up and do it. But if you are socially surrounded, you will have something to get moving. Also, working out or doing other physical/mental activities themselves alone gets so boring after sometime, coz there's isn't much to looking forward to.
metafunctor 5y ago
Counterpoint of one, my dad's in in his 70s, and seems sharp as ever. Last summer, he took upon a project of building a protocol converter between a GPS device and some kind of sailing computer in his sailboat. I politely listened to many details, which I immediately forgot, but there was a Rasperry Pi and some protocols on serial buses and making sense of binary logs. His system works and is in use. Either he was really, really fucking smart 25 years ago, or there was no steep decline so far. I'm betting it's the latter.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
wtetzner 5y ago
> Maybe there is some other factor, like constant hard training of the brain by having ever-evolving creative work instead of kind of same office work, or some other aspect. I have a suspicion that a lot of it comes down to diet. After a while it catches up to you. And I don't think what mainstreams doctors consider to be a healthy diet is necessarily what we should be eating.
postalrat 5y ago
> Now they are in their 60s and same work they did all their life, they would barely manage. Memory starts to go down too. Are they still working or not?

rjh29 5y ago

My mum is a teaching assistant and is 71. She seems as sharp as ever and mood is the same. I think it's key that she still works full-time in a very social environment and keeps active outside of work. It's pretty clear to me that mental health declines rapidly once you start isolating and staying indoors all the time.

reactor 5y ago
Yes pretty much, loneliness is a silent killer. Its so 'silent' that you won't even notice that you are declining but interestingly others will notice.
- bigDinosaur 5y ago
  Although it has been difficult to ascertain exactly the relative weights of stress, anxiety, frustration, and so on due to the past two years, I think a large part of my current cognitive difficulties are stemming from social isolation. Do not recommend. It turns out that even extremely introverted people do very badly when isolated which I suppose is kind of an involuntary (for whatever reason) situation. I am young, so I hopefully have not caused any permanent issues with my time of isolation - I shudder to think what it would do to me if I were 60 and facing the physical decline of old age.
  - olivermarks 5y ago
    Physical decline is hugely variable and arguably primarily a function of genetics. I would also argue some people's 'mental speed' was never that great - humans are hugely variable in performance, strength and weaknesses which makes me doubt the 'until after 60' concept. I have a 92 year old mother who is very good mentally for example compared to many people half her age...
    - bigDinosaur 5y ago
      It'd be a hugely unethical experiment to do, but I suspect we'll have quite a bit of data coming out of areas that did full lockdowns for extended periods of time (that were enforced) over the past two years. We should, if the theory that isolation causes cognitive decline is true, see a general decline in certain populations and it should diverge from matches around the world etc.
      - traceroute66 5y ago
        > It'd be a hugely unethical experiment to do Hugely unethical, but also not scientifically sound. COVID infection itself has already been demonstrated in various papers to cause mental decline (TL;DR there seems to be a correlation between how "sick" you got and the amount of decline). There is also the unknown of long-term post-COVID-infection consequences on the brain. So you would have a bit of a hard time trying to seek to attribute lockdowns to mental decline. Especially, as we know, COVID can manifest itself as an asymptomatic disease. You then have the additional question of what are you going to count the infectious isolation period as ? It would not be ethical to count it as "lockdown". Basically it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible to achieve any sort of statistical segregation between "lockdown" and "COVID". Thus your input data would be messy, and per the GarbageIn-GarbageOut rule, so would your "conclusion".
        bigDinosaur 5y ago
        I don't agree that it's not 'scientifically sound', it just depends on what signals the data actually shows. Natural experiments are never perfect and with something like isolation it's probably impossible to ever see such natural experiments without major confounders. I don't see why that makes you abandon the idea that anything can be learned at all.
traceroute66 5y ago
> My mum is a teaching assistant and is 71. She seems as sharp as ever and mood is the same. I think it's key that she still works I agree. I don't necessarily buy the "loneliness" argument for cognitive decline. However I certainly buy the importance of keeping mentally and physically active. Infact I would go as far as saying people who use the "loneliness" term are actually just using it as a lazy synonym for "lack of mental and physical activity". You don't necessarily need to surround yourself with people to achieve it. Whether its still working in a job, or doing non-job activities such as gardening, travelling, photography, I think keeping your brain busy and your body moving is the key. If you revert to the cliché retirement image of taking long naps during the day, stopping only to eat and watch daytime TV, then IMHO that's where the problems start.
- reactor 5y ago
  I tend to disagree. Mental and Physical activities require intent and effort. At older stage, your willpower alone will not push you to make you get up and do it. But if you are socially surrounded, you will have something to get moving. Also, working out or doing other physical/mental activities themselves alone gets so boring after sometime, coz there's isn't much to looking forward to.

metafunctor 5y ago

Counterpoint of one, my dad's in in his 70s, and seems sharp as ever. Last summer, he took upon a project of building a protocol converter between a GPS device and some kind of sailing computer in his sailboat. I politely listened to many details, which I immediately forgot, but there was a Rasperry Pi and some protocols on serial buses and making sense of binary logs. His system works and is in use. Either he was really, really fucking smart 25 years ago, or there was no steep decline so far. I'm betting it's the latter.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

wtetzner 5y ago

> Maybe there is some other factor, like constant hard training of the brain by having ever-evolving creative work instead of kind of same office work, or some other aspect. I have a suspicion that a lot of it comes down to diet. After a while it catches up to you. And I don't think what mainstreams doctors consider to be a healthy diet is necessarily what we should be eating.

postalrat 5y ago

> Now they are in their 60s and same work they did all their life, they would barely manage. Memory starts to go down too. Are they still working or not?