US President Donald Trump has been showing a “dead ringer telltale sign” of frontotemporal dementia, a pair of psychologists have claimed as they say the symptom is getting “worse and worse”
A duo of psychologists have asserted that Donald Trump has been exhibiting a “dead ringer telltale sign” of a rare brain condition, claiming the symptom is becoming “worse and worse”.
Clinical psychologists Dr John Gartner and Dr Harry Segal have raised concerns about the president’s psychomotor abilities, alleging the 79-year-old is showing obvious indicators of dementia.
During their latest Shrinking Trump podcast episode, Dr Gartner elaborated: “Some of the more evidence that we’ve been talking about recently has been his psychomotor performance, that we’re seeing a deterioration in his motor performance, which also goes with dementia because with dementia there’s a deterioration of all faculties, all functions.”
He added: “The language and the verbal dysfunction is what we notice first and also what we notice in terms of his public behavior, but now his motor performance is starting to get worse and worse”, reports the Mirror US.
Dr Gartner disclosed it’s not simply any form of dementia he suspects Trump might be experiencing, as he maintained the president has lately been demonstrating a “telltale sign” of frontotemporal dementia. Frontotemporal dementia is a rare form of dementia that triggers difficulties with behaviour and language.
It impacts the frontal and lateral regions of the brain, and similar to other forms of dementia, it typically progresses gradually and deteriorates slowly over multiple years.
“One of the things that one of the neuropsychologists that we were working with last year pointed out that is almost a dead ringer telltale sign of frontotemporal dementia is something they call a wide-based gait, where you have a sort of one of your limbs, one of your legs, you kind of swing it in a semicircle,” Dr Gartner explained.
The specialists then referenced Trump’s meeting with Vladimir Putin from earlier this month. They screened two footage segments showing Trump apparently having difficulty maintaining a straight path whilst walking along a red carpet to meet the Russian president.
“He’s weaving all along the carpet,” Dr Gartner observes. He added: “His right foot is swinging and it’s pushing him to the left. So, as it’s swinging, he’s veering left and then he overcorrects and moves to the other side of the carpet and then it happens again.
“I mean, if they pulled you over for a DUI and you walked that line, you know, you would fail,” Gartner remarked following a fast-forwarded recording of Trump’s red carpet walk. Dr Segal confirmed he had observed the same behaviour.
“It’s very odd, isn’t it? Because it doesn’t look like someone who’s drunk, but he’s drifting back and forth as if again as if he can’t control one of his legs,” Dr Segal noted. The psychologists showed a second clip, this time at normal speed, to demonstrate more clearly what Trump was doing with his feet.
“One step at a time, right?” Dr Gartner observes.
“You can see it his sort of the leg swings and it moves him sort of one step to the side. And it was step after step after step and then he overcorrects,” he continued. Despite growing concerns, the president has boasted about his cognitive health.
After his annual physical in April, Trump claimed that he “got the highest mark,” on his cognitive test, though both Dr Segal and Dr Gartner have previously pointed out that this should be straightforward to achieve. “President Trump exhibits excellent cognitive and physical health and is fully fit to execute the duties of the Commander-in-Chief and Head of State,” White House physician Dr Barbabella determined.
“Overall, I felt I was in very good shape,” Trump remarked about the results. “A good heart, a good soul, a very good soul.”
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