For many months now, the President of the United States, Joe Biden, has been confused time and time again: in interviews and speeches, he gets confused between names, his speech is slow, hesitating, his gaze is frozen, all of them once again put the measure of his suitability for the position of the leader of the world’s greatest power. If in the past there was doubt, today experts in the medical world are unanimous that Joe Biden’s cognitive function is impaired, which casts doubt on his ability to hold his position. The polls, especially after the last confrontation with Donald Trump, showed that support for him is at a low even though he declares that he has no intention of giving up the race for the White House.
So what is causing Biden’s cognitive decline? While the White House insists that the tests of “potus” – the first president’s nickname – are completely normal, here are the leading possibilities according to experts which one of them he is suffering from and which reduce his chances of being eligible for the race.
Normal aging: Life expectancy continues to break records, and Israel is in the top ten: the average age of women here reaches 84 years, the age of men approaches 80 on average, and with them also more and more cognitive diseases. With age, the brain also gets older, areas in it degenerate, the cerebral cortex shrinks, and the result is a greater slowness in the electrical transmission in the brain which is manifested, among other things, in difficulty finding words, forgetting names, confusion and difficulty following a conversation. As you know, US President Joe Biden is 82 years old. Although his latest medical report stated that he is in perfect health, it is not known what the results of his updated cognitive test are.
Mild cognitive impairment: This condition is characterized by a cognitive decline beyond the aging process, but which allows the continuation of daily conduct. The cognitive impairment may sometimes be a precursor to dementia, but not always. Sometimes it continues to progress in its degree of severity, and manifests itself in forgetfulness, disorientation, forgetting names, confusion, slow speech. Some people with cognitive impairment allegedly try to “compensate” for the mistakes of confusion and forgetfulness, and invent “completion” sentences that apparently correct the wrong word or sentence, so that those around them will not notice that they were confused.
dementia: A family of diseases that affect the brain and manifest in significant cognitive decline, the most common of which is Alzheimer’s. It is a progressive degenerative disease, in which proteins accumulate that damage the brain cells. The result is a deterioration in mental function, memory loss and impaired thinking, concentration, learning and communication abilities. The patients also sometimes suffer from hypervigilance, hallucinations and insomnia. They tend to lose orientation in their home, in their relatives, and more than once they are also found wandering the street when they do not recognize the situation or the place where they are.
Most of the patients die within 10-15 years of the onset of the disease. The diagnosis today is based on the symptoms of the disease, and recently some hospitals also add a test for the presence of the disease proteins in the spinal fluid to the diagnosis process. Recently, a new blood test was approved that allows early diagnosis of the disease, even years before the first symptoms.
Parkinson’s: Parkinson’s disease is caused by a lack of the neurotransmitter dopamine due to the degeneration of an area of the brain called the “substantia nigra”. The disease progresses in five stages, one of the first of which is a subtle change in the structure of the voice that is usually not discernible in everyday life.
The prominent symptoms of the disease tend to appear when the disease is already in an advanced process, and they include involuntary tremors usually in the legs but also in the hands, muscle stiffness, slowness of movement and difficulty especially at the beginning of movement, disturbance in posture and balance when standing or walking, stooped walking and small steps. Speech also becomes increasingly unclear and is also accompanied by forgetfulness, confusion, decreased memory, slowing of thinking, sleep disorders and changes in mood. Unlike in the past, today it is known that about a quarter of the patients will not suffer at all from the hallmark of the disease – tremors. The diagnosis is made as approximately 60% of the nerve cells in the area of the brain that controls the motor activities are already destroyed. Therefore, the treatment and rehabilitation capacity is low. The treatment of the disease includes, among others, the drug levodopa, which balances the dopamine level in the brain, physical therapy, and in severe cases also surgery or electrical stimulation treatments for the brain. According to recent estimates, it was feared that this was the diagnosis that Biden was suffering from.
Stroke: In Israel, about 20,000 cases of stroke occur every year, a condition in which oxygenated blood does not reach the sensitive brain tissue. The result is nerve cell death. When the destruction of cells occurs in areas related to memory function, symptoms of memory difficulties, confusion, and also a stroke occur, a condition in which oxygenated blood does not reach the brain tissue, which causes the death of nerve cells. The typical symptoms of a stroke include weakness or paralysis on one side of the body or face, sudden vision problems, dizziness and loss of balance or a sudden headache. However, if the damage has occurred in those areas that are responsible for memory, confusion and forgetfulness will also appear. This possibility, according to neurologists in the US who have followed Biden, seems less likely.
Additional factors: Forgetfulness and confusion in the third age may result from a variety of other medical reasons that also include nutritional deficiencies such as a lack of vitamins and minerals, depression of the third age which is also manifested in cognitive impairment, medications, head trauma, tumors or infections and inflammations. However, these are less likely. The White House continues to insist that Biden’s condition is excellent and that he has also undergone neurological tests, but there is no doubt that there is already solid evidence of the question marks hovering over his cognitive ability to continue managing the world’s greatest power.