# How soon into Reagan's presidency did the rumors of dementia start? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 13, 2018, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-soon-into-reagans-presidency-did-the-rumors-of-dementia-start/821299 "2018-09-13T21:28:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2018, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-soon-into-reagans-presidency-did-the-rumors-of-dementia-start/821299/41 "2018-09-19T10:37:43Z")
**Moderator Note** Let’s keep discussions of Trump out of this thread, please. If you wish to discuss our current president’s mental state or abilities, please do so in another thread/forum. ---
**Author:** ![Ashtura](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ashtura/32/2963_2.png) [@Ashtura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtura)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2018, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-soon-into-reagans-presidency-did-the-rumors-of-dementia-start/821299/42 "2018-09-19T13:40:59Z")
Well, he was always portrayed as a dottering old man while President, which would mask a dementia diagnosis, but I do not recall anything specific about it. I remember some incredulity about his not being able to remember anything during Iran Contra, so I don’t think everybody thought he had dementia. When it was officially announced I don’t think it surprised too many people. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2018, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-soon-into-reagans-presidency-did-the-rumors-of-dementia-start/821299/43 "2018-09-19T14:05:40Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > I wasn’t overly impressed by your passage, but then again I’m not drawing a bright line between early onset dementia and “age-associated memory impairment”, which affects about 40% of the population. > > Nit pick though: the cognitive test Trump took was very basic. [Here it is](https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/can-you-pass-the-cognitive-test-trump-aced-in-his-medical-exam/). Exercises include drawing a clock face and getting the numbers right. See a picture of a mouse and correctly identify the animal. Be given two words (orange and banana) and discuss their similarities (they are both fruit). > > A Kindergartner could pass Trump’s test. Many nursing home residents could not. It’s not an intelligence test. People with cognitive decline have been proven to be unable to do all of this test successfully because their brains are literally breaking down. The quoted passage from Reagan is from 1987 and a live interview, it’s not demonstrating he’s a potential Nobel winner—it’s saying there’s no way he was in a Woodrow Wilson/Edith Wilson situation as some people in this thread are asserting, claiming that Reagan’s “mind was gone” as early as his first term. Reagan wasn’t President in the 1910s, he had to appear on TV regularly, he had medical assessments regularly. There’s no way he had any serious cognitive decline like people are suggesting. People are mixing in partisan bias + a non-wonk President that deliberately affected folksy plainspokenness as far back as the 60s + normal age related memory loss with Alzheimer’s. ---
**Author:** ![race\_to\_the\_bottom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c4cdca/32.png) [@race\_to\_the\_bottom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/race_to_the_bottom)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2018, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-soon-into-reagans-presidency-did-the-rumors-of-dementia-start/821299/44 "2018-09-24T00:42:57Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > In the first Carter-Reagan debate he embarrassed himself multiple times. So I thought “Wow, Carter really won this.” But the headlines the next day were about Reagan’s great performance. This kind of thing goes on all the time in US presidential “debates”. It is all about performance, and the people eat it up. I recall thinking before the “debates” between Gore and Bush that Gore would make Bush look like the empty suit he was, and in a real debate, he would have, but no, Bush “won” at least one of those. It is all theater. So it was with Trump/Clinton. All theater; no substance. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-soon-into-reagans-presidency-did-the-rumors-of-dementia-start/821299.md?page=2)