WASHINGTON -- Any parent whoās ever called one of their children by the otherās name ā or even the family petās name ā likely could empathize when U.S. President Joe Biden mixed up the names of French leaders Macron and Mitterrand.
The human brain has trouble pulling names out of stuffed memory banks on cue. But when are those and other verbal stumbles normal, and when might they be a sign of cognitive trouble?
āWhen I see somebody make a flub on TV, Iām really not all that concerned,ā said well-known aging researcher S. Jay Olshansky of the University of Illinois at Chicago. āWhat science will tell you about flubs is that theyāre perfectly normal, and they are exacerbated by stress for sure.ā
Biden, 81, has a decadeslong history of verbal gaffes. But theyāre getting new attention after a special counsel this past week decided Biden shouldnāt face criminal charges for his handling of classified documents ā while describing him as an old man with trouble remembering dates, even the date his son Beau died.
That prompted a visibly angry Biden to lash out from the White House, saying, āMy memory is fine.ā As for his sonās 2015 death from brain cancer, āFrankly, when I was asked the question, I thought to myself, it wasnāt any of their damn business,ā Biden said.
Biden is not the only candidate making verbal slips. Former U.S. president Donald Trump, Biden's likely opponent in the November presidential election, has also. Last month the 77-year-old Trump confused his major opponent for the GOP nomination, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
Health experts caution that neither verbal gaffes nor a lawyer's opinions can reveal whether someone is having cognitive trouble. That takes medical testing.
But certain glitches are common at any age.
āTo easily recall names, right in the moment, is the hardest thing for us to do accurately,ā said Dr. Eric Lenze of Washington University in St. Louis, a geriatric psychiatrist who evaluates cognition in older adults.
Some studies have suggested that everyday āmisnamingā may occur when the brain has names stored by category ā like your family members or perhaps in Bidenās case, world leaders heās long known ā and grabs the wrong one. Or the miss may be phonetic, as the names of Franceās current president, Emmanuel Macron, and former president Francois Mitterrand both begin with āM.ā Mitterrand died in 1996.
As for dates, emotion may tag certain memories but not run-of-the-mill ones, such as the special counsel's questions about when Biden handled a box of documents.
āAttaching a calendar date to an event is not really something that the human brain does at any age,ā Lenze said. Itās ānot like a spreadsheet.ā
Whether it's a name, date or something else, memory also can be affected by stress and distractions ā if someone's thinking about more than one thing, Olshansky said. And while everybody's had an āit's on the tip of my tongueā lapse, flubs by presidents, or would-be presidents, tend to be caught on TV.
Olshansky watches recordings of his presentations at science meetings and āthere isnāt a single time I donāt make a mistake,ā he said. āIām 69 years old, which I do not consider to be old, but I made the same mistakes when I was 39.ā
It's reasonable for people to wonder if leaders in their 70s and 80s remain sharp, Lenze said. What's reassuring is if overall, what someone says is overall accurate despite a verbal gaffe.
Some cognitive aging is normal, including delay in memory retrieval. Peopleās brains age differently, and heart health, blood pressure and physical activity play a role in brain health.
And while Trump often brags about passing a screening-style memory test several years ago, Lenze said the best assessment includes rigorous neuropsychological testing.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Instituteās Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
