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Trump may be more seriously mentally declined than Biden

Flopo Dlopo · 2024-07-09T05:50:48.059498+00:00

Mental decline is a part of natural aging and will occur to most of us lucky enough to reach the age of either presidential nominee. We should draw three lines to separate the levels of mental decline. A nice chart comparing them can be found here Healthy aging: This is what happens naturally to the aging body. We should not consider these symptoms to be a cause of any serious worry about the overall well-being of the mind. The symptoms of these are primarily: being slower at recalling words and finding names; having problems with multitasking; and experiencing mild decreases in the ability to pay attention. Mild Cognitive impairment: This is an abnormal development and may be a precursor to dementia. One can still do their job and daily tasks with MCI, yet the changes can be noticed by others. Symptoms include: further increases in forgetfulness; loss of your train of thought; trouble following a conversation; difficulty in making decisions, finishing tasks, or following instructions; and poor judgment. Generally, these changes are noticed by others before they are noticed in the individual. Dementia: This is the highest degree of abnormal brain development. Most Dementia is caused by Alzheimer's disease. Dementia should be considered more a large collection of related symptoms than a singular disease. These symptoms include the above as well as: Trouble holding a conversation to full inability to talk; heavy repetition in both questions and stories; difficulty with daily activities; Hallucinations, delusions, and paranoia. Looking at these three brain developments we should first ask ourselves where Biden lies. Seeing as he was always a weak public speaker, I think he is most likely healthily aging. The MCI symptoms he has seem to be entirely speech and language-related, yet given that he has had these symptoms for decades I do believe this is the natural degradations one should see with aging. For instance, I lose things all the time, I expect if I reach this age healthily the phenomenon will worsen even if there are people who have full dementia, yet lose things less than I do. Outside of public behavior, what other signs do we have of Biden's mental health? It is not easy to find any medical history of Alzheimer's or such, and his diet and habits are low-risk. So I would estimate Biden at 65% chance of naturally aging, 35% chance of MCI. On the other hand, consider Trump's symptoms. Consider for a moment if Trump was not a grifter. If so, then Trump's legendary paranoia is a very important symptom. Extreme paranoia that everyone is out to get you may be excellent television, but it is a very clear marker for dementia. Moreover, Trump is increasingly repetitive, which may have started as a good strategy, yet now seems to be impossible for him to stop. His repetition and looping of stories involving how everyone is out to get him and how illegal immigrants are coming may be symptoms. Generally, in dementia repetition is a sign of looking for comfort, security and familiarity we can see that when Trump seems uncomfortable this repetition happens very quickly. Trump's language skills are still excellent, yet unlike how most people perceive mental disorders, just because one does not have every symptom does not mean that these disorders are not occurring. Moreover, delusional disorders are by far the most dangerous in the leader of a country. Outside of public behavior, what information do we have to evaluate Trump's mental health? Firstly, his father had dementia . Secondly, his diet and overall health are subpar, which is a weaker link to Alzheimers. So I would estimate that in a world in which Trump is not grifting and believes what he is saying Trump has a 50% chance of healthy aging and a 50% chance of Dementia. In the case where he is mostly grifting and saying what he is saying not out of belief in it being true but in a demagoguery attempt for power then I would conclude that he is almost surely naturally aging. However, if it is somewhere in the middle as I do think is most likely, I think there is a 75% chance of healthy aging vs a 25% chance of dementia. Therefore I think it is fair to say that Trump may be more seriously mentally declined than Biden. (note all estimates of percentages are my own and I am not a medical professional)