If the White House is trying to cover up a serious decline in Trump’s cognitive and/or physical condition, attributing the slurred word “states” to loose dentures or a dry mouth will play into their hands. Better to be mocked than forced to admit the president has a medical disorder which effects his ability to fulfill the duties of being president.
The official term for slurred speech is dysarthria, when the muscles you use to speak weaken or you have a hard time completely controlling their use.
People can slur their words for any number of reasons. It can be a sign of problems with a nervous system disorder like a brain tumor or a stroke. People who have cerebral palsy or Guillain-Barré Syndrome can struggle with slurring. Multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, Lyme disease, Huntington's, Myasthenia gravis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Parkinson's and Wilson's disease all can cause it.
Dental work -- such as ill-fitting dentures -- can also be blamed. Medication can impact speech, as can drugs and alcohol. Or people can simply slur their words when they get tired. Reference
Ironic as it may be that the inability to pronounce the United States, of all country names (we forgave Namibia) could be the first sign of a serious condition, it is still something we cannot ignore. In fact, if this is the case, making jokes about it plays into the hands of those in the White House who want to cover up the true cause.
Jokes about loose dentures are low hanging fruit. Unfortunately, making fun of a president who is so vain plays well with Trump critics. It distracts from addressing the issue of a psychiatric and/or medical problem.
I think we would do well to look at the signature on the executive order too. It appeared to be bigger and longer that his usual grandiose John Hancock.
I’m a clinical social worker with no medical training. However, in my experience with neurologists, no first time episode that is brand new for the patient, and which may be symptomatic, is ignored. Whether it’s a TIA or an olfactory hallucination, or something else the patient has never experienced, a medical work-up would seem advisable.
If he presented to a neurologist just with this presenting problem I think he would be given the full battery of tests. This would include a mental status exam to look for early dementia, and include a sleep deprived EEG and a brain MRI to see if there may be other causes.
Thursday, Dec 7, 2017 · 4:05:16 PM +00:00 · HalBrown
CNN’s Chief Medical Correspondent,
Dr. Sanjay Gupta, a practicing neurosurgeon, said he watched the video closely a few times. "There is clearly some abnormalities of his speech," he said. "You could call it slurring or just a little bit of difficulty forming the words."
Michael de Riesthal, a speech and language pathologist, agrees. "There was definitely some imprecise progressive change in articulatory precision and slowing of his speech that is not typical in normal speech," said
de Riesthal, an assistant professor in hearing and speech sciences at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the director of the Pi Beta Phi Rehabilitation Institute. "The distortion of his articulation, though, is unknown in etiology."
Neither Gupta nor de Riesthal has ever treated Trump for any reason.
De Riesthal said the distortion was particularly noticeable when the President said "United States."
Although Trump has what de Riesthal would characterize as a typical Queens, New York, accent, "this was a noticeable change for his speech." It could be anything, though, especially since it seemed like he was "working hard to speak" -- as if "having a denture fall or some other alternative explanation."
However, it definitely "seemed too unusual for something like that to be dry mouth.”
Thursday, Dec 7, 2017 · 6:19:32 PM +00:00 · HalBrown
From The Hill:
The president appeared to have an issue with his speech toward the end of the announcement. Some in the media and many on social media speculated that he wears dentures and they were falling out, affecting his speech.
"#DentureDonald" was trending on Twitter for most of Wednesday into Thursday.
A White House spokesman, however, attributed Trump's slurred speech to "dry throat."
"I don’t know. Is that a tooth problem? Is that something else?" Schmidt asked on Thursday. "Presidents every year typically go to the Bethesda naval hospital for a checkup. This president, to my knowledge, is departing from that. We don't have updates on his health. We don’t know what’s going on, but this is a legitimate issue worthy of consideration. This is the man who commands America’s nuclear arsenal. And that video, that speech, that impairment, is chilling."
"Morning Joe" co-host Joe Scarborough has questioned Trump's mental fitness on several occasions in the past, with the former GOP congressman most recently stating on Nov. 30 that “people close to him during the campaign" told him "he had early stages of dementia."
Saturday, Dec 9, 2017 · 3:19:43 PM +00:00 · HalBrown
“It’s entirely possible that the president does not have predementia or is not progressing toward dementia. But he is definitely behaving as such.”
Ford Vox, M.D., is a medical journalist and commentator who practices brain injury medicine in Atlanta.
EXCERPT: When President Trump slurred his words during a news conference this week, some Trump watchers speculated that he was having a stroke. I watched the clip and, as a physician who specializes in brain function and disability, I don’t think a stroke was behind the slurred words. But having evaluated the chief executive’s remarkable behavior through my clinical lens for almost a year, I do believe he is displaying signs that could indicate a degenerative brain disorder.
As the president’s demeanor and unusual decisions raise the potential for military conflict in two regions of the world, the questions surrounding his mental competence have become urgent and demand investigation.