When the 46th President of the United States took the debate stage a week ago, it became apparent, even from his first answer, that this would not be the performance he hoped for.
For me as a brain specialist, it was concerning to watch President Joe Biden, and it quickly became clear that I was not alone in my reaction. Over the past week, I received more than a dozen calls, texts and emails from medical colleagues who, like me, specialize in the brain. It wasn’t that what we noticed was necessarily new but that it was particularly pronounced, and right from the start of the debate.
From a neurological standpoint, we were concerned with his confused rambling; sudden loss of concentration in the middle of a sentence; halting speech and absence of facial animation, resulting at times in a flat, open-mouthed expression. To be clear, these are only observations, not in any way diagnostic of something deeper, and none of these doctors wished to suggest that was the case.
The consensus from the doctors reaching out to me, however, was that the president should be encouraged to undergo detailed cognitive and movement disorder testing, and those results should be made available to the public.
Over the past five years, I have reported extensively on the advances in the world of treating and reducing risk of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, Lewy body dementia and vascular dementia. For the documentary “The Last Alzheimer’s Patient,” I even went through extensive cognitive testing to demonstrate what it entailed and determine whether I had problems with executive functioning, judgment or memory lapses, as well as blood tests to determine things like the level of abnormal proteins that may be present in my brain and my B12 levels. My sense of smell and my genetic risk factors were checked. This type of testing is not necessary for most people as a matter of routine, but every one of the brain doctors I spoke to recommended that level of examination for Biden.
Read Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s full analysis
Source link : https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/biden-trump-election-07-05-24/index.html
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Publish date : 2024-07-05 19:33:00
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