SAFETY
Cognitive Issues for the Older Diver: Clear Minds, Safe Dives by Dan Orr , President, Dan Orr Consulting, ID
A LTHOUGH THIS ARTICLE is written to an aging diver, and you may not be there yet, this advice equally applies to your customers.
news is that we can plan for this, just like we plan breathing gas, decompression, and equipment selection. Awareness and preparation go a long way toward keeping older divers safe, capable, and confident.
Diving has always attracted people who love adventure but also appreciate order, planning, and control. And as we get older, most of us become even more in- tentional about those things. We know our backs don’t like giant strides the way they used to. We feel our ears a bit more. We take more time and effort climbing the boat ladder. That’s all pretty obvious. What’s far less obvious, and frankly, a
Cognitive aging doesn’t hit everyone the same way, and it’s not all negative. Expe- rience, judgment, and pattern recognition may actually improve with age. That’s why older, seasoned divers are often the calmest in a crisis and the best at anticipating issues before they become problems. But some abilities commonly decline, even in healthy aging. Processing speed can slow
lot more insidious, is subtle cognitive change. This isn’t about “losing it” or being unfit to dive. It’s about recognizing that the same aging process that affects our knees, shoulders, and back can also affect our memory, attention, and decision- making. Underwater, where the environment can be very unforgiving of error, those changes can matter. The good
down; we may take longer to absorb and act on new infor- mation. In diving, this can mean a slower reaction to an equipment issue, an environmental change, or a buddy signal. Working memory, the “mental scratch pad” we use to keep track of information in real time, may not be as sharp. Un- derwater, you rely on it to track breathing gas remaining vs. depth vs. time, follow a navigation pattern, or remember the last step of an emergency procedure while you’re still performing the first one. On land, a little forgetfulness or slower reaction time is often just an annoyance. Underwater, it can become a real hazard. The diving environment is complex and dynamic: currents, boat traffic, changing visibility, unexpected marine life, and problematic entries and exits all demand attention. Diving loads us with tasks: we manage buoyancy, navigation, breathing gas, communication, perhaps photography, and sometimes students or less-experienced buddies. Physiologic stressors such as nitrogen narcosis, cold, exertion, CO2 buildup, exceeding maximum operating depth (MOD) when diving with Nitrox and possible subclinical decompression effects can amplify minor cognitive deficits. And underwater, we often have limited time to correct mistakes. A navigation error or missed turn on land costs a few extra minutes; at depth it costs breathing gas and can escalate anxiety. Aging itself is not the problem. Unrecognized and unplanned-for cognitive change is. It helps to know what to look for. We should be watching for patterns, not one-off slips; everyone occasionally forgets
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