Now C'mon Guys

"Drawing Impairment Predicts COPD Mortality"

(Medscape- you must be a member to view the article there but anyone may join)

"An inability to "copy drawings with landmarks," a standard feature of neuropsychological tests, is associated with an increased risk of death in patients with severe COPD, according to a report in the December issue of Chest."

Now c'mon guys, let's get real. I thought this article was a practical joke when I saw the headline but it's deadly -sorry I couldn't help myself- serious.

I'm far from being dead but I cop to a severe inability to copy drawings with landmarks even on my best days at any age. Let me state it more strongly. If I were to channel Leonardo da Vinci I still wouldn't be able to draw anything with landmarks. I max out at stick figures on gallows, and even those look pretty crappy.

Put a drawing pencil in my hand and I freeze, reverting to four years old and that jumbo crayon. Figures of people have eyes on the side of their heads and noses in the vicinity of their left shoulders. Houses have that squiggle of smoke coming from a pointy roof and crosses in something sort of like a square for window panes. Doors are more like hobbit holes. And poor doggies or kitties look like cotton balls on toothpicks tapping their way through the scenery.

Draw? Not I. So does that make me ready to die? I don't think so. I think you need to tie your statistics to something called common sense instead of nonsense, then we'll talk about valid prognosticators of mortality.