I just read this in Salon, and have to pass it on. What if the GOP front runner ... [is] unwell?
It takes a while for the author, Prof. Sophia McClennan, Professor of International Affairs and Comparative Literature at Penn. State, to get to the point. But she quotes the Alzheimer’s Association, that if “two of the ...[listed] core mental functions seem impaired, medical help should be sought.” The core functions: “Memory, communication and language, ability to focus and pay attention, reasoning and judgment, visual perception. Alzheimer’s carries other symptoms besides memory loss including: difficulty remembering newly learned information, disorientation, mood and behavior changes; deepening confusion about events, time and place; unfounded suspicions about family, friends and professional caregivers; more serious memory loss and behavior changes.” Among other things, she points out Trump’s poor grammar and speech patterns, and numerous examples of his ignorance of basic facts, including ones I hadn’t read of before e.g. that he wanted to bring Joe Paterno back to Penn State, even though Paterno died in 2012. Despite the length, I urge people to read the article.
I have personal experience with Alzheimer's: for the last year and 4 years, respectively, of my mother’s and father's lives, I took care of them. Both of them died of Alzeheimer's. Before they required help, they were both widely read, knowledgeable, involved, extremely liberal people who were very well-respected; they both had responsible positions before their retirement. (When it was announced that Reagan was suffering from Alzheimer’s, my mother and I looked at each other and at the same instant, said, “How can they tell?” and we all laughed. Little did we know then….) My parents exhibited many of the lesser-known symptoms described above, but one of the salient features was, for the most part, that their own personalities and characteristics got more extreme. My mother, for example, had a very biting sense of humor and was “assertive” all her life. By the last year, that assertiveness had turned into frequently violent aggression, and her statements had more bite and less humor.
If McClennan's suggestion is true, and she makes a fairly convincing case, I would go a step further: that Trump does have Narcissist Personality Disorder, aggravated by the beginnings of Alzheimer's. Furthermore, one of the symptoms that are not listed, is that normal sleep patterns are disrupted. As we know, Trump boasts of needing very little sleep, and we see his tweets from all hours of the night.
The “doctor's note " that the campaign had issued was, as we know, off the wall. Maybe his family, if they truly care about him, should have him examined by a qualified neurologist who is experienced with Alzheimer’s patients.