What is the cognitive test and how easy is it?

Age and mental health have recently become major issues in the US presidential election.

The issue has come up before between President Joe Biden (81) and his rival Donald Trump (78), but it reached a turning point following Biden’s weak performance in a debate late last month.

Biden is the oldest president in U.S. history and, if Trump wins, he will become the second-oldest president in history.

In an interview with ABC News, Biden declined to say whether he would undergo cognitive testing, saying “I get cognitive testing every day” and that his doctors don’t think it’s necessary.

Trump said he has taken the cognitive ability test twice, once while he was president and once more recently, and he said he got perfect scores both times.

Here we explain the test content, purpose, and difficulty of passing.

There are a variety of tests and screens available to measure how well your brain is functioning.

According to the Cleveland Clinic, they don’t diagnose a specific disease, but they can help doctors know if additional testing is needed to make a diagnosis.

Cognitive screening is usually indicated if you are having problems with memory, personality changes, balance, or if you are repeating the same things, forgetting parts of the past, or not being able to understand information.

One of the most widely used tests is the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), a rapid method to “assess cognitive ability in individuals with suspected cognitive impairment,” according to Sanford Medicine.

The assessment tests orientation, memory, attention, ability to name objects and follow verbal and written instructions and is also available online.

This is usually easy for people without cognitive impairment, but difficult for those who are mentally impaired.

Ziad Nasreddine, the Canadian neurologist who designed the test, told the BBC he thought it could be useful to Biden both as a way to reassure the American public and as a precaution if any problems arose.

In simple cognitive testing, a medical professional asks the patient a range of questions about learning and memory.

A longer clinical evaluation includes cognitive testing as well as physical and neurological examinations and a complete medical history of the patient.

The latter could paint a clearer picture of the cognitive abilities of both Biden and Trump, said Dan Mangas, associate director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at the University of California, Davis.

Often, healthcare professionals will start with a quick test like the MoCa and move on to a more comprehensive exam if the score is lower than expected.

More detailed tests will assess language, executive function and visuospatial abilities.

For example, a medical professional may read a story to a patient and ask them to recall parts of the story to test their memory or learning ability.

Patients may be asked to recall a list of words, name objects in a picture, or name items that begin with a particular letter.

In addition to questioning patients, Dr. Mungus suggests talking to people who spend time with the patient regularly to determine symptoms of cognitive decline.

Dr Mungus added that it is important to see whether a person’s abilities have changed over time, and that a one-off assessment can be misleading.

“You need to understand where the person started. If they’re declining from where they were before, that’s a bad sign,” he said.

But cognitive testing isn’t the whole story, he points out.

“The idea that there’s a simple cognitive test that will tell you this person would be a good president doesn’t make sense. I’ve been doing cognitive tests my whole career,” Dr. Mangas said.

The American Academy of Neurology (AAN) recommends that doctors evaluate the cognitive abilities of people aged 65 and older.

Dr Nasreddin told the BBC that he had made the decision because the chances of disability increase with age.

By age 75, 25 percent of patients will suffer from some cognitive impairment, he warned.

“Cognitive impairment occurs quite frequently and sometimes people don’t even notice it,” said Nasreddin, who has never treated or met the president.

He said he’d noticed changes in Biden over the past year, with the president moving more slowly in public, speaking slower and with a much lower voice, mumbling and slurring his words.

He noted that not many people of Biden’s age have such demanding jobs, and it’s difficult to explain normal functioning for someone that age.

“I have never seen this before. [decline] “After all these years, I first saw something like this last year,” he said.

Dr Nasreddine noted that Trump appeared to be stricter, despite being only three years younger.

The 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution lays out the order and procedure for succession if the president dies or is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”

The amendment would apply if the president is removed from office, becomes incapacitated, dies or resigns.

The amendment was ratified in the aftermath of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, but has become controversial in recent years.

During Trump’s term in office, lawmakers were considering a bill to amend the Constitution to allow a panel of medical experts to determine whether the president was fit to serve.

Democrats also approved a House resolution calling on then-Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to the Constitution to remove Trump from office after the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Neither move produced any results.

Following Biden’s debate performance, some Republican lawmakers called on his cabinet members to invoke the provision.

The Fourth Amendment provides that if the vice president and the cabinet or a majority of Congress determine that the president is “unable to discharge the duties of his office,” the vice president will take over.

It has never been used or tested in cases of mental impairment.