Should Politicians Be Tested for Dementia?
Bizarre speech and language may be a cognitive problem.
Posted December 17, 2025 | Reviewed by Lybi Ma
The Scripts News Agency asked if I could assess a politician's cognitive fitness by listening to their speech and language. My answer disappointed them.
A Window Into the Brain
Speech and language analysis can help assess brain health. Unrehearsed communication functions like the warning lights in your car. If the oil light turns red, it may be a false indicator, but you'd be foolish to ignore it. The same is true for suspicions of dementia .
Dementia is not a specific disease. Think of it as "cancer." Nobody has "cancer." They have "prostate cancer," "brain cancer," "breast cancer," or any of the other 200 types of cancer that have been identified. When you hear or use the word "dementia," it refers to how the brain processes information. You may have wondered what the difference is between "dementia" and "Alzheimer's." Alzheimer's is one of more than 100 types of dementia, although the most frequent type of dementia is Alzheimer's.
Politicians don't share results of cognitive tests (Note: Neither remembering the names and sequence of six objects nor counting backwards from 100 are cognitive diagnostic tests!) But much can be learned by analyzing politicians' speech and language.
By doing a linguistic analysis of unrehearsed communication (spontaneous speech), the presence of dementia may be found. While not as definitive as eight hours of neurological testing, it can raise red flags. Here are seven of the most important ones.
- Semantically Inappropriate. Semantics refer to the meaning of a word or sentence. When someone “rambles,” stories are often repeated and have little connection to what was just said or what follows. The observation they are making or the story they are telling has little or no relevance to what preceded or followed it. Semantically inappropriate segments may signal a difficulty in structure , an important feature of cognition that becomes impaired with dementia.
Example: In the middle of a story a politician was telling, something reminded her of an event that happened 20 years ago, and she spends 15 minutes going into detail before returning to her presentation.
- Disinhibition . Occasionally, a guffaw becomes a joke. However, sometimes it is so inappropriate that few explanations are possible. Disinhibition is a feature of dementia.
Example: While discussing a potential conflict between nations, the politician makes comments about a reporter's appearance.
- Blatant Falsehood. Politicians and exaggerations are thought to be bedfellows. But sometimes the falsehood is so ridiculous, it’s difficult to believe it’s just part of a political strategy. With dementia, the boundary between truth and fiction is not only permeable but also undetectable to the speaker.
Example: A politician confabulated three stories, combining them in a way that asserted a person unconnected to the three stories was engaging in human trafficking.
- Mispronunciation of words . Speech production is complex , requiring the coordination of more than 150 muscles. As we age and our neurology becomes more fragile, mistakes in selecting and producing sounds are common. An occasional mispronunciation is not a cause for concern, but the increased presence of mispronounced common words should be concerning.
Example: Calling Yosemite "Yo-semite," "Venezuera" for Venezuela, and "wall-mongers" instead of war-mongers, should not be considered significant unless mispronounced words are frequent. There may or may not be a pattern with the words.
- Replying to Questions with Unrelated Answers . Politicians will often respond to questions with unrelated answers to avoid answering. However, with dementia, what appears to be a deception may reflect the person's inability to understand the question. The more abstract the question, the more likely it will not be answered satisfactorily.
Example: A reporter asked a politician about a complex health care issue. After struggling to respond, the politician talked about the construction of a highway in his district.
- Repetition of Facts, Stories, or Questions . Repetition in people with dementia is common. It may be caused by damage to brain regions responsible for storing information or an attempt to understand.
Example: When explaining his vote, a politician repeated his reasons four times, almost verbatim, during his five-minute answer.
- Confusion . The brain is responsible for integrating short, long, and sequential memory through a process called “ executive functioning ” or “working memory.” Working memory allows you to make scrambled eggs, remember how to get home after leaving a restaurant, and perform thousands of other tasks that require the manipulation of information. When someone is confused , it may signal the beginning of dementia. In movement, the result may be disorientation in a familiar place. In a presentation, ideas may not logically follow from one another, or the exposition of even a single idea may be fragmented.
What to Do With the Red Flags
Like most attempts to be definitive about the brain, you need to cautiously approach the warning signs of dementia. Here are some suggestions:
Differentiating between senior moments, cruelty, and dementia can be complicated. While a simple linguistic analysis is not definitive, in the absence of formal test results, it may be the best you have. Look for clusters of behaviors, their severity, frequency, and trend. Ignore anything read from a teleprompter.
Stan Goldberg, Preventing Senior Moments: How to Stay Alert into Your 90s and Beyond (Latham, Roman & Littlefield, 2023)
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Stan Goldberg, Ph.D. , is a professor emeritus at San Francisco State University and has received numerous national and international awards. His recent book is Preventing Senior Moments.
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This article is part of the Bringwise Psychology Journal — daily insights on human behavior, mental health, and personal growth.