I said the other day that the “Fire and Fury” book has lowered expectations about Donald Trump:
When you read of the dysfunction and chaos in his White House, it then comes as a pleasant surprise when you hear Donald Trump stringing a basic, reasonably coherent sentence together without falling over the furniture and dribbling.
Well, this week the results of Trump’s annual medical tests were released. There seems to be considerable relief that his tests, at least according to the lead medic, Dr Ronny Jackson, gave good results. As far as Mr Trump’s cognitive abilities are concerned, Dr Jackson said:
The president is mentally very sharp, very intact.
Trump himself has got in on the act, boasting of his mental accuity. In an interview with Reuters, he blamed his three immediate predecessors for failing to resolve the North Korea crisis, saying:
I guess they all realized they were going to have to leave it to a president that scored the highest on tests.
Well, this is where the lowered expectations come in. Trump scored 30/30 on something called the “Montreal Cognitive Assessment” or “MoCA”. He “aced” this test.
But now you need to actually look through what is in the actual test itself. For example, see the image above. Name those three animals. Don’t get me wrong, I am sure MoCA is an excellent test for dealing with patients who might be suffering from dementia or cognitive deterioration. It is a serious and very widely used medical test.
But three dimensional chess it ain’t.
Here’s another of its questions:
Draw a clock showing ten past eleven.
It perhaps speaks volumes that the bar has been lowered so low, that some are rejoicing that the President is able to answer such basic questions.
* Paul Walter is a Liberal Democrat activist and member of the Liberal Democrat Voice team. He blogs at Liberal Burblings.
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5 Comments
@Paul Walter
Trust me, I am not defending Trump in the slightest.
But wasn’t the test done because there had been accusations that Trump was suffering from early stages of alzheimer’s?
I know that test and similar tests are very good at diagnosing and assessing the stages of people with the condition because my Dad has Vascular Dementia.
For the record, I wouldn’t believe the results published of any tests that Trump has undertook, just as much as I don’t believe he is 17 stone or that his tax returns would ever be complete and transparent
You’re quite right matt. Some concerns had been expressed not least by Ford Vox, M.D., a medical journalist and commentator who practices brain injury medicine in Atlanta. (I am not sure whether this was the “thorough cognitive testing” he had in mind though).
I’ve filed this post under “humour” as it was somewhat tongue-in-cheek. I liked the idea of the animal pictures. I think I would have struggled to remember the words “Face, velvet, church, daisy, red” five minutes after they had been read out to me.
What is scary Paul is that tests like these only eliminate the memory related dementias. I would suspect that fronto-temporal dementia is more likely (where disinihibition is the issue more than forgetfulness).
Ruth Bright
I dunno – was there ever a time when he was inhibited?
Fair enough!!!!!!