{"id":392336,"date":"2018-01-17T08:03:37","date_gmt":"2018-01-17T08:03:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=392336"},"modified":"2018-01-17T08:03:37","modified_gmt":"2018-01-17T08:03:37","slug":"trumps-cognitive-ability-normal-says-white-house-doctor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=392336","title":{"rendered":"Trump&#8217;s cognitive ability is normal, says White House doctor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">US President Donald Trump has shown no abnormal signs following a cognitive exam and is in excellent health, his White House doctor says.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I have no concerns about his cognitive ability or neurological functions,&#8221; Ronny Jackson said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Last week,\u00a0Mr Trump, 71, had a three-hour examination\u00a0in his first medical check-up since becoming US president.<\/p>\n<p>It comes after the release of a controversial book fuelled speculation about the president&#8217;s mental health.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to reporters during a White House briefing on Tuesday, Dr Jackson said that the president&#8217;s overall health was &#8220;excellent&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;All data indicates the president is healthy and will remain so for the duration of his presidency,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He continues to enjoy the significant long-term cardiac and overall health benefits that come from a lifetime of abstinence from tobacco and alcohol,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p>When asked by a reporter how a man who consumes fried chicken and Diet Coke and does not exercise could be in good shape, Dr Jackson replied: &#8220;It&#8217;s called genetics&#8230; He has incredible genes.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>However, Dr Jackson added that Mr Trump could benefit from a lower-fat diet and more exercise.<\/p>\n<p>On Friday, the president was examined by military doctors at the Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, in tests that were said to have gone &#8220;exceptionally well&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Among them was Dr Jackson, whose official title is Physician to the President.<\/p>\n<p>A rear admiral in the US Navy,\u00a0he also tended to Mr Trump&#8217;s predecessor, Barack Obama.<\/p>\n<p>To check for possible cognitive dysfunction, the US Department of Veterans Affairs uses the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) neuropsychological test.<\/p>\n<p>The MoCA test assesses an individual&#8217;s attention and concentration, memory, language, conceptual thinking, calculations, and orientation\u00a0&#8211; among other functions.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/3D1A\/production\/_99624651_moca.png\" alt=\"An example of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) neuropsychological test\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Questions have been raised about the president&#8217;s cognitive ability, particularly with the publication of Michael Wolff&#8217;s book, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.<\/p>\n<p>Some neurological experts had compared earlier clips of Mr Trump speaking with more recent instances in which he had used fewer words and appeared to ramble.<\/p>\n<p>Wolff has alleged the president is intellectually incapable of carrying out his role and questioned his mental fitness. He claimed\u00a0all of the president&#8217;s White House aides saw him as a &#8220;child&#8221; who needed &#8220;immediate gratification&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Trump responded by saying Wolff&#8217;s book was &#8220;full of lies&#8221;, while Secretary of State Rex Tillerson dismissed suggestions the president&#8217;s mental health was failing.<\/p>\n<p>In December 2015, Mr Trump&#8217;s own long-time doctor, Harold Bornstein, declared in a pre-election assessment that his client would be the &#8220;healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>US President Donald Trump has shown no abnormal signs following a cognitive exam and is in excellent health, his White House doctor says. &#8220;I have no concerns about his cognitive ability or neurological functions,&#8221; Ronny Jackson said on Tuesday. Last week,\u00a0Mr Trump, 71, had a three-hour examination\u00a0in his first medical check-up since becoming US president. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":392337,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[109,16202,16201],"class_list":["post-392336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-trump","tag-trump-cognitive-ability","tag-white-house-doctor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=392336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/392337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=392336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=392336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=392336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}