Who Is the...?

There are a few questions asked of people to evaluate their cognitive functions. These are meant to see if the subject is oriented in today's time and place. My daughter Susan, a Speech and Language Pathologist who is one tick away from her Ph.D., is studying the early-onset of Alzheimer's Disease, AD. In this pursuit, she is running a study evaluating a population of those with and without signs of AD.

Orientation question can go along the lines of "Where are we today?" "What town are we in ?" "What is today?" "What year is it?"

Her favorite question is however, "Who is the president?" She gets flat responses that say "Trump is the president." Then she gets those that are opinionated. She shared one recently.

Subject is an 86 year-old male with AD.
"Who is the president of the United States?"
"A horse's ass."
"What is his name? I can't give you credit for that answer."
"I told you, a horse's ass. And I know you agree with me. TRUMP!"
Subject's head bangs on the table.
"Okay, I can give you a point for that."

My daughter has only been running this study since Trump was elected. Thus, there is no data on how subjects answered when say, Obama was president.

When is comes to academics, if there is always room for Jell-O there is always room for another study. Stay tuned.

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