'Biden's brain is aging, Trump's is dementing': Experts analyze series of ... trends now
Doctors have put forward a fascinating theory about why it is former President Donald Trump, rather than the incumbent Joe Biden, who is at the greatest risk of cognitive decline and dementia.
Biden, 81, has suffered a series of public gaffes, falls and memory blanks that now mean a large majority of Americans do not think he is fit to run for office.
Trump, 77, is also no stranger to high-profile verbal slip-ups, which his supporters say are a result of the off-the-cuff public speaking style he's become famous for.
However, experts now claim there are key - but nuanced - differences in Trump and Biden's gaffes that could have important implications for their health.
Dr Elizabeth Landsverk, a geriatrician and dementia expert, told DailyMail.com Biden's mishaps tend to be short and severe - such as tripping up stairs or memory-blanking. And he usually catches his mistakes, however embarrassing they may be, which she claims is a sign of his very senior years.
Despite seeming more physically robust than Biden, Trump's gaffes usually see him ramble on for an extended period of time and fail to correct himself, which could be the sign of underlying brain problems, several experts told this website.
Doctors have previously told DailyMail.com President Joe Biden should take dementia tests because of a pattern of confusion, mix ups and a damning report by Special Counsel Robert Hur that called him a 'well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory'
One psychologist called the situation 'a tale of two brains,' claiming: 'Biden's brain is aging. Trump's brain is dementing.'
Several of the experts DailyMail.com spoke to said the fact Trump's father suffered from dementia fueled their concerns - because genes are a risk factor.
Dr Landsverk took an example of Trump repeatedly confusing former Speaker Nancy Pelosi with former South Carolina Gov Nikki Haley during a campaign speech in January and claiming Gov Haley 'was in charge of security' during the January 6 Capitol riot.
She told this website: 'He often rambles — sometimes incoherently — for long periods of time. His remarks tend to be scrambled, disjointed and filled with factual errors.'
While Biden may confuse names and dates, psychologist and senior lecturer at Cornell University Dr Harry Segal told DailyMail.com it is more concerning that Trump actually confuses people.
He has previously said multiple times he is running for office against former President Barack Obama and claimed at a rally earlier this month that Biden had won against Obama in previous unspecified elections.
His misses are not just 'slips,' Dr Segal said, they are 'derailments' that have become more frequent and that result in major digressions that make no sense.
These 'semantic disruptions,' the verbal mixing up of facts, could be early signs of dementia, he added.
Additionally, Dr Segal, who told DailyMail.com he has not treated Trump as a patient, said the ex president's verbal blunders are examples of phonemic paraphasia, the swapping of words for others that sound similar, which can also be an early sign of dementia.
He told this website: 'I think the concern is we're seeing these slips more and more at rallies that are at night, which go on for several hours.'
In dementia patients, symptoms of their condition often become worse at night, which is referred to as 'sundowning.'
And Dr Segal said Trump's frequent mistakes as the sun goes down during long rallies could be a sign of this.
Dr John Gartner, a psychologist, "said on the David Pakman Show that in regards to Trump, a key sign of cognitive decline 'is a lack of awareness that you have cognitive decline when you are making these mistakes and you don't correct yourself because you're not aware you've made a mistake.'
On the other hand, experts say, Biden usually catches and corrects his mishaps, like when he said inflation was tied to 'a war in Iraq' but quickly clarified, 'excuse me, the war in Ukraine.'
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