I was reading a community diary story today that you really should read, if you haven’t already, about the writer’s experience taking the cognitive assessment test. I have had difficulty processing Donald Trump’s answer regarding this matter to Fox News in a way that I hadn’t really come to terms with until reading that diary and thinking about how it made me feel.
I had my first MOCA test years after rehab recovering from a violent crime assault, and, unfortunately, since then for the past 25 years, I’ve had a version of this test given to me with decreasing regularity. The point of a cognitive test isn’t to “ace” it or prove how much of a smart person you are: The point is to track whether or not you are experiencing a negative trend in your ability to function, which can be caused by time, disability, or even medication. As the president bragged about his test results, one question kept popping up: Why brag? This test is easy. Only once, due to a bad drug interaction, did I ever suffer difficulties. It was that one time, though, that was a clue to doctors around me that something was wrong, resulting in changes to my medication. A follow-up test showed me, I guess in Trump’s terms, “acing the test” with “unbelievable” results. I don’t know if I would call them unbelievable, because they were to be expected. At the time of my traumatic brain injury (TBI), the MoCA didn’t exist. Still, the goal of neurologists was the same. It wasn’t to determine if I was smart—it was to determine if brain trauma was having a degenerative effect, or if the damage had stopped. Continue reading.