Verbal gaffe or sign of trouble? Mixing up names like Biden and Trump have done is pretty common
WASHINGTON — Any parent who has ever called one of their children by the other’s name — or even by the pet’s name — could probably empathize when President Joe Biden mixed up the names of French leaders Macron and Mitterrand.
The human brain has difficulty retrieving names from filled memory banks at the right time. But when are these and other verbal stumbles normal, and when can they be a sign of cognitive problems?
“When I see someone make a mistake on TV, I don’t really worry that much,” says noted aging researcher S. Jay Olshansky of the University of Illinois at Chicago. “What science will tell you about the flu is that they are completely normal, and they are certainly made worse by stress.”
Biden, 81, has a decades-long history of verbal blunders. But they are receiving new attention after a special prosecutor ruled last week that Biden should not face criminal charges for his handling of classified documents — while describing him as an old man who has trouble remembering dates, even the date his son Beau died.
That prompted a visibly angry Biden to lash out from the White House and say: “My memory is fine.” As for his son’s death from brain cancer in 2015: “Honestly, when I was asked the question, I thought to myself, it was none of their damn business,” Biden said.
Biden is not the only candidate making verbal mistakes. Former President Donald Trump, Biden’s likely opponent in November’s presidential election, has done so too. Last month, the 77-year-old Trump confused his main opponent for the Republican nomination, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
Health experts warn that neither verbal blunders nor a lawyer’s opinion can determine whether someone has cognitive problems. Medical tests are required for this.
But certain problems occur at any age.
“Remembering names most easily, at that precise moment, is the hardest thing for us to do accurately,” says Dr. Eric Lenze of Washington University in St. Louis, a geriatric psychiatrist who evaluates cognition in older adults.
Some research has suggested that everyday ‘misnaming’ can occur when the brain has stored names by category – such as your family members or perhaps in Biden’s case, world leaders he has long known – and picks up the wrong ones. Or the miss could be phonetic, as the names of France’s current president, Emmanuel Macron, and former president Francois Mitterrand both start with “M.” Mitterrand died in 1996.
When it comes to dates, emotion can mark certain memories, but not the mundane ones, like the special counsel’s questions about when Biden handled a box of documents.
“Associating a calendar date with an event is not really something the human brain does at any age,” Lenze said. It’s “not like a spreadsheet.”
Whether it’s a name, date or something else, memory can also be affected by stress and distraction — when a person is thinking about more than one thing, Olshansky said. And even though everyone has the occasional “it’s on the tip of my tongue” mistake, the statements of presidents, or future presidents, are often caught on television.
Olshansky watches recordings of his presentations at scientific meetings and “there isn’t a single time I don’t make a mistake,” he said. “I’m 69 years old, which I don’t consider old, but I made the same mistakes when I was 39.”
It’s fair for people to wonder whether leaders in their 70s and 80s remain sharp, Lenze said. What is reassuring is that what someone says is generally accurate, despite a verbal blunder.
Some cognitive aging is normal, including delays in memory retrieval. People’s brains age differently, and heart health, blood pressure and physical activity play a role in brain health.
And while Trump often bragged about passing a screening-style memory test several years ago, Lenze said the best assessment involves rigorous neuropsychological testing.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.