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Turning off Waze or your favorite GPS app and using an old-fashioned map may be the best way to fight Alzheimer's disease, a new study reveals:
Researchers at McMaster University say orienteering, an outdoor sport that exercises the mind and body through navigation puzzles, can train the brain and stave off cognitive decline. The aim of orienteering is to navigate between checkpoints or controls marked on a special map. In competitive orienteering, the challenge is to complete the course in the quickest time.
For older adults, scientists say the sport — which sharpens navigational skills and memory — could become a useful intervention measure to fight off the slow decline related to dementia onset. They believe the physical and cognitive demands of orienteering can stimulate parts of the brain our ancient ancestors used for hunting and gathering.
The human brain evolved thousands of years ago to adapt to harsh environments by creating new neural pathways, the McMaster team explains. Those same brain functions are not always necessary today, however, thanks to GPS apps and food being readily available.
Unfortunately, the team says these skills fall into a "use it or lose it" situation.
[...] People who participated in orienteering displayed better spatial navigation and memory skills, suggesting that adding elements of wayfinding into their daily routines benefited them over their lifetime.
Journal Reference:
Emma E. Waddington, Jennifer J. Heisz. Orienteering experts report more proficient spatial processing and memory across adulthood, PLOS ONE (DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0280435)
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- Whether People Inform Themselves or Remain Ignorant is Due to Three Factors
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 25 2023, @06:52AM
FWIW if you can still keep using smartphone GPS apps over the years through all the various UI and behavior changes ("necessary" and unnecessary/worse) for both the smartphones and the apps themselves, you'd be exercising your brain too.
Seriously though, walking and running by themselves have been proven to help with delaying aging of the brain. The problem is for many people the ability to walk/run goes down when they age. Their cartilage etc wears out and doesn't grow back fast enough. This often happens before they get dementia.
So if these unfortunate people still want to practice their navigation skills then maybe playing certain types of video games might help.
As for the article, outdoor running and biking are for young people who are far from dementia. You'd near inevitably get injured in such activities and if you are older it often takes you a long time to recover if you recover at all.
There are exceptions of course, but most people won't recover as well from cycling accidents when they're in their 40s and 50s compared to when they were in their 20s. And a fair number just get killed. Do your HIIT, burpees or walks if you want in safer environments then play games for the navigation and brain stuff.
As people get older, there are many who get knocked down by a vehicle or just slip and fall, spend months in bed/hospital and then die.