Do not read too much into Biden, Trump verbal stumbles, experts caution

Experts on aging caution against concluding that U.S. President Joe Biden and his Republican rival Donald Trump are suffering from cognitive decline based on their verbal slip-ups, saying that mixing up names or dates does not necessarily mean a deterioration in mental acuity.

Biden, 81, a Democrat running for re-election in November, and former President Trump, 77, his likely challenger, have accused each other of mental decline. Trump's last rival for the Republican nomination, 52-year-old Nikki Haley, has said both men are too old to occupy the White House and should be subjected to cognitive tests.

Five aging experts interviewed by Reuters stressed cognitive assessments can only be made by doctors via special in-person examinations and tests, and warned that judging candidates' mental acuity from news clips and interviews can be dangerously inaccurate and misleading. They said that the U.S. public and media risk becoming a nation of armchair gerontologists.

"We make mistakes. The probability of slip-ups rises as we get older. That has nothing to do with judgment," said S. Jay Olshansky, a professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois at Chicago.