Robert Reich: Why Isn't the Media Reporting on Trump's Growing Dementia?

[summer_in_TX]

46. A number of medical professionals have raised concerns about Trump's cognitive decline.

No, they haven't examined him. But they've studied many videos covering many years. Trump's vocabulary has shrunk significantly over that time from his own cognitive baseline. He now appears to forget words and trails of with sounds that do not resemble words. He's slurring and eliding sounds often.

His father had dementia.

I myself started showing signs of aphasia a decade ago, and have trouble retrieving words at times. Sometimes I have to describe items adjacent to the word I'm looking for until my listener is able to guess what I meant. My grandmother had similar symptoms, and though I function fine mentally in many ways (except for retrieving names and now nouns, I know dementia runs on both sides of my family.) I haven't been formally assessed, but even a dozen years ago when I still taught it could take me several minutes to retrieve the name of my students – even though I'd had them more than one year as a special ed teacher. (A factor in my deciding to retire.)

One of the researchers did a study of both Trump and President Biden's language changes over time, counting the various kinds of gaffes each make. The study's conclusion noted that both men's language abilities have declined but said Biden's is consistent with normal aging and doesn't raise red flags about dementia. Trump's did. I believe the study caused the author to put him in the mild to moderate category of dementia. His performance at the debate was more coherent than he's been in recent events that have been recorded, so his may not be all that advanced, but I suspect based on my own experience that aphasia is a problem for him.