Time magazine can't let go of Trump acing his neurological exam

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says Dr. Ziad Nasreddine, who developed the assessment in 1996. “It’s unlikely that [Trump] has dementia or Alzheimer’s.”

Unlikely, but not impossible, says Dr. Paul J. Moberg, the clinical director of neuropsychology service at the University of Pennsylvania’s medical school.

“Just because a person gets a 30 out of 30 doesn’t mean you wouldn’t pick up even very significant impairments in further testing,” he said. “A more comprehensive neurological exam would be required to really tease that out.”

In some cases, he said, families might bring in a patient because he or she is demonstrating clear signs of dementia, such as memory loss or confusion, and the patient will ace the MoCA — only to be confirmed as having a serious deficit when given a comprehensive test that can take anywhere from three hours to a day.

“The MoCA is a wonderful cognitive screening test. But that’s what it is: a screening test,” says Moberg’s colleague David R. Roalf, a research assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania Department of Psychiatry. “It doesn’t necessarily speak to competency, per se.” Moberg agreed: “A screening measure is not enough to assess competency.”

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