Doctor claims Donald Trump has symptoms of predementia

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Dr Ford Vox, a brain specialist at Atlanta's Shepherd Center, has broken down Donald Trump's symptoms of predementia
He points to times the president has flummoxed language, broken decorum hamhandedly, and contradicted himself
His words come after TV host Joe Scarborough said he has concrete evidence from campaign staff that Trump suffers from onset dementia
But some question Dr Vox's qualifications to diagnose a person he has never met or assessed in person
Last week, Trump sparked speculation about his health when he slurred his words during his historic speech about Jerusalem
Trump has announced that he will undergo a physical early next year

By Mia De Graaf Health Editor For Dailymail.com

Published: 11:33 EST, 12 December 2017 | Updated: 14:37 EST, 12 December 2017

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A doctor who specializes in brain disorders has called for Donald Trump to be testing for degenerative brain diseases like predementia.

Dr Ford Vox penned a lengthy analysis for Stat News, pinpointing various moments in Trump's presidency which he believes to show hints of a neurological condition.

He points to times when Trump has contradicted himself, rambles in interviews, makes faces, and forgets to sign bills at bill-signing ceremonies as 'worrisome symptoms' of illness.

His words come just days after the president slurred his words and got a dry mouth during his speech historic speech about Jerusalem, sparking a flurry of speculation about his health - including TV host Joe Scarborough saying 'people close to him during the campaign told me [he] had early stages of dementia'.

And today, an article from the New York Daily News reveals that Trump - who famously questioned whether Barack Obama had seen his own birth certificate - mistakenly listed his own birthday as July 14, instead of June 14, on his ballot for New York's mayoral election last month, possibly rendering his vote invalid.

To quell the tumult of questions from journalists on Friday about the word-slurring, press secretary Sarah Sanders announced that Trump will undergo a physical examination early next year, with the findings released to the public.

However, while Dr Vox's article was praised by Trump critics, many have questioned his ability to make a diagnosis of someone he has never met in person - and it comes just months after Stat published an article by another doctor warning against 'armchair diagnoses' of the president.

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Dr Ford Vox, a brain specialist at Atlanta's Shepherd Center, (left) has broken down moments that he believes show Donald Trump (right) has symptoms of predementia

In his article, Dr Vox, a physician and journalist from Atlanta who works at the Shepherd Center, compares Trump's behavior to patients he has assessed.

'Every day of my working life, I evaluate people with brain injuries,' he writes.

'It falls to me to make decisions about what is normal and what is not, what can improve and what will not, whether or not my patients can work, what kind of work they can do, and pretty much everything else.'

While he refrains from directly diagnosing Trump, he insists that 'it would be prudent for the president to be tested for a brain disorder.'

He breaks down his piece into subsections of language, social cognition, and memory and attention.

Linguistically, he says, Trump uses an excessive amount of 'filler words' which denote a lack of fluency.

Trump's early-morning tweets and retweets - including his controversial retweet of Britain First last week - are signs of social and behavioral decline, Dr Vox says.

For this section he also pointed to Trump's racial slur of using 'Pocahontas' as a derogatory term during a ceremony honoring Navajos, and times when he has contradicted his own team, such as admitting that he did know about James Comey's involvement with Russia before firing him.

Finally, he points to the New York Times article documenting every lie Trump has ever told as a sign of poor memory, and also points to the birth certificate saga - when Trump insisted then-president Obama could not possibly have been born in America.

Last week, Trump sparked speculation about his health when he slurred his words during his historic speech about Jerusalem

The article received praise amid building controversy about Trump's erratic behavior.

However, it chalks with an article published by the same site, the health site of the Boston Globe, slamming 'armchair diagnoses' of the president.

In September, Dr Allen Frances, who was chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University when he oversaw the task force to build today's psychiatry manual, slammed doctors who say Trump is mentally ill.

He has been scathing about the president, branding him a narcissist and ruthless self-promoter.

However, he dismisses the scores of 'armchair diagnoses' from health professionals who claim Trump must be mentally ill.

According to Dr Frances, the 71-year-old does not fit the criteria for narcissistic personality disorder, delusional disorder, and dementia - the illnesses most commonly ascribed to him.

He is hardly the only one to question this approach, both among Trump's supporters and his critics.

Dr Scott Wooder, a family doctor from Ontario, said: 'I have concerns with physicians giving clinical opinions about politicians. It opens a can of worms. Let constitutional safeguards do their jobs. Oppose Trump because of his policies, not his alleged medical problems.'

Dr Steve Joffe, a physician and ethicist of the University of Pennsylvania, says 'I am leery of diagnosis from a distance, because of the risk that political disagreement biases medical judgment', but he adds that he feels Dr Vox's piece was 'careful' and 'concludes with a question rather than a diagnosis'.

Daily Mail Online has contacted the White House for a comment.