Donald Trump recently took his first medical examinations since he became President. Trump received a perfect score (30/30) on a test designed to “identify early cognitive decline,” according to
. The test, which is called Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MOCA), is developed by a Lebanese-Canadian neurologist named Ziad Nasreddine. Born to a Druze family, Nasreddine arrived in Canada with his widowed mother and sisters when he was fifteen years old to visit his uncle. Eventually, the Nasreddine family stayed in Canada because Lebanon was ravaged by the civil war. MOCA, which was used in 200 counties and translated into 60 languages, evaluates an individual’s mental state by asking him or her to complete several tasks such as drawing a cube or naming animals. It is administered in approximately ten minutes. The test features the following exercises:
- Visuospatial abilities
- Naming
- Memory
- Attention
- Language
- Abstraction
- Delayed recall
- Orientation
The cognitive screening does not evaluate personality traits or psychological issues. Nasreddine told
that he is thrilled that the Presidential physician Dr. Ronny Jackson chose his test.