the damage from Alzheimer’s can start years before anyone one notices the los of cognitive function. I personally think that the last 1-2 years of Regan’s Presidency there was a noticeable impact on him intellectually but that being said he was intellectually functioning better then most politicians on capital hill. it is sad to me that Regan will always have Liberals pouncing on this to claim he was not Great president.
That is wrong. The physical changes in the brain that lead to dementia can begin as much as 20 years before symptoms manifest. But there is zero cognitive impairment prior to some symptoms showing. Cognitive loss can be measured with testing before there is anything significant that you could see. If Reagan had noticeable symptoms in ‘86 he would have been dead by ‘96 not 2004.