Originally posted by bagdropper:
The human brain is like any other muscle. Use it, it stays fit. Don't, it gets sloppy and out of shape.
One of the hardest things we (my immediate family) kids have had to adjust to is the fact our parents reach a certain age where they just plainly don't want to think as they used to any more. My mother, a 40 year veteran high school teacher...once she hit roughly 75, she just stopped wanting to learn new things. If she changed TV providers, there were almost nightly calls from her to us wanting to know what channel such and such is on etc. Tried to buy her a cell phone, she refused to use it because that would mean having to re-learn how to use what had worked since the 1950's.
She just plain stopped wanting to learn new things. When we would remind her...for 40+ years your job was to teach new things to people, she'd just go "I'm retired, I don't have to learn this stuff if I don't want to. And I don't want to".
As she because more resistant to what I would call learning day to day living changes, her driving went straight down hill. We were scared to ride with her. She finally gave up her license and car at 84. My best friend is going through this also. His father, at 77 - ran stops signs regularly. They took his car away from him a month ago via doctor's recommendations.
My grandpa...hit a city cruiser in the town he lived in in rural Iowa. Ran a stop sign at age 93, t-boned the cruiser. Probably drove that intersection for 75 years. As a result, they took his license away. He died a month after. He told my aunts and uncles before he died...there's no reason to live any more without being able to drive. He lost his (in his mind) his reason to keep living (being able to be mobile, visit the farms his children and grand-children owned in Franklin County)...and died shortly after.
My point in all this - and tying it back to the other thread....I think a person's mind and capabilities...if the person stays engaged mentally, he can handle things like holding office into their early 80's. But the thing to realize is it's different for every single person what that age is that suddenly...ok, can't handle it any more.
