Judge for Yourself
Spectator
President Donald Trump just turned 80. Already the oldest person to ever be elected to the office, he will be the oldest to have ever served if he finishes his current term. There are many questioning if he is mentally up to the task.
This comes on the heels of Joe Biden being ridiculed, insulted, and effectively run out of his reelection efforts after a poor debate performance. It was clear, his critics claimed, he was suffering from dementia. As the criticism increased, Biden dropped out of the race just 104 days before the election, leaving Kamala Harris with little chance to mount a coherent effort, though she only lost by 1.5 percent.
Which brings us to our current president and the growing concerns about his mental health. It is true enough it is frequently difficult to follow his train of thought, and sometimes it’s not clear that train ever left the station. But does that qualify as the onset of dementia as his detractors and, to be fair, others have suggested?
Trump likes to brag, ad nauseam, about a cognitive test he’s now taken three times, occasionally misidentifying it as an IQ test. The president claims he “aced” the test and calls such a result rare.
The president has actually been taking the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) but why he has felt obliged to take it three times is a bit of a mystery. The test is easily available online and you can take it yourself. Designed to determine if there is cognitive impairment, it consists of 30 questions and takes about 10 minutes to complete.
Not exactly a brain teaser, the test, among other things, asks you to draw a clock face, to repeat words, to identify the different animals so you know the difference, for example, between a crocodile and an elephant. A score of 26 or higher would indicate a lack of cognitive impairment, and Trump claims he has a perfect score of 30 on each test. (Should you decide to take the test, you will discover a perfect score is somewhat less challenging and surprising than the president wants us to believe.)
It is not clear we would even know if a president was suffering from dementia unless it was acknowledged or those closest announced it. Trump would not be the first president with some impairment.
Woodrow Wilson suffered a debilitating stroke in 1919, but his wife Edith successfully kept the news from his cabinet. She functioned as his gatekeeper for issues and day-to-day operations to prevent his resignation and the succession of vice president Thomas Marshall.
Richard Nixon seems to have taken some vacations from reality as Watergate crashed his second term. Some aides reported he had taken to having conversations with the portraits of previous presidents. It should be noted he did understand math and when it became clear the U.S. House had enough votes to impeach him and the U.S. Senate had the votes to convict him, he resigned.
Ronald Reagan was ultimately diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, and many believe the effects had started during his second term in the White House.
So, are Trump’s incoherent ramblings a sign of dementia or just part of his normal difficulty staying on subject? How would we absolutely know and which type of dementia would he be suffering?
The most common and famous, or infamous, is Alzheimer’s disease, a build-up of plaque in the brain that robs a person of coherent thought, memory and, ultimately, basic life-giving functions. Early symptoms could include short-term memory loss, difficulty with names and dates, slurring words, frequent repetition, or asking the same question repeatedly, and becoming easily agitated or anxious. The president does exhibit some language quirks, does frequently slur his words, and does repeat the same information—especially when it isn’t true, like his delusions about the 2020 elections.
Another symptom is called “sundowning,” a state of increased confusion and anxiety toward the end of the day and into the evening. Here, Trump’s late night social media rants, some of which go on for pages of confusing nonsense, do fit this symptom, and it’s in evidence almost daily.
The second most common form is vascular dementia which, as it implies, involves circulation, or lack thereof, of blood getting to the brain. This can be marked by dysarthria, the slowed thinking and slurring of words or mental disorganization jumping from subject to subject.
Then there is Lewy body dementia, symptoms of which include fluctuating alertness, sleep disruptions and, sometimes, vivid hallucinations, a stooped posture, unsteady gait, and shuffling of the feet.
Watch the president as he walks away from Air Force One. Listen as he speaks or tries to answer questions. Read the full transcript of any recent interview. Judge for yourself.