As a neurologist, Major Neurocognitive Disorder (formerly dementia) comes in all shapes and sizes. Unfortunately, Biden’s performance and the particular types of gaffes he makes have been highly concerning to me (and essentially all of my colleagues) for some time. He likely has two separate forms of neurodegenerative decline: both demen…
As a neurologist, Major Neurocognitive Disorder (formerly dementia) comes in all shapes and sizes. Unfortunately, Biden’s performance and the particular types of gaffes he makes have been highly concerning to me (and essentially all of my colleagues) for some time. He likely has two separate forms of neurodegenerative decline: both dementia and Parkinsonism. It seems like there has been an acceleration of the latter component in the past few months. This is why he has the masked facial expression, the reduced blink freq, variable hoarseness, and slow/stiff movements.
At this point, I doubt he’d score a 27-28 out of 30 on the Montreal Cognitive Assesment (what you might consider passing). He might be able to get to 25…but I wouldn’t bet the farm on it. Biden struggles with semantic paraphasic errors and this is responsible for his odd word substitutions. He also has great difficulty with coding new memories or what we call anterograde memory formation. This is why he’s been constantly forgetting that people have died (a gaffe he’s been making for a few years). Because he hasn’t coded the memory of Helmut Kohls death. It’s a new piece of info he can’t code. But he can easily recall other info about his life as the remote memories in a demented patient stay intact for awhile.
I’ve seen multiple posters use his earlier physical as proof that his neurologic function is fine…read that report. At no point, is there any mention of a cognitive assessment being performed (not unusual for a routine physical, btw). The blanket statement that he shows no signs of Parkinson’s or “ascending lateral sclerosis” (an embarrassing typo) means nothing as it was not performed by a neurologist who would know the subtle signs of Parkinsonism. His aren’t even subtle.
As a neurologist, Major Neurocognitive Disorder (formerly dementia) comes in all shapes and sizes. Unfortunately, Biden’s performance and the particular types of gaffes he makes have been highly concerning to me (and essentially all of my colleagues) for some time. He likely has two separate forms of neurodegenerative decline: both dementia and Parkinsonism. It seems like there has been an acceleration of the latter component in the past few months. This is why he has the masked facial expression, the reduced blink freq, variable hoarseness, and slow/stiff movements.
At this point, I doubt he’d score a 27-28 out of 30 on the Montreal Cognitive Assesment (what you might consider passing). He might be able to get to 25…but I wouldn’t bet the farm on it. Biden struggles with semantic paraphasic errors and this is responsible for his odd word substitutions. He also has great difficulty with coding new memories or what we call anterograde memory formation. This is why he’s been constantly forgetting that people have died (a gaffe he’s been making for a few years). Because he hasn’t coded the memory of Helmut Kohls death. It’s a new piece of info he can’t code. But he can easily recall other info about his life as the remote memories in a demented patient stay intact for awhile.
I’ve seen multiple posters use his earlier physical as proof that his neurologic function is fine…read that report. At no point, is there any mention of a cognitive assessment being performed (not unusual for a routine physical, btw). The blanket statement that he shows no signs of Parkinson’s or “ascending lateral sclerosis” (an embarrassing typo) means nothing as it was not performed by a neurologist who would know the subtle signs of Parkinsonism. His aren’t even subtle.