Following a closely monitored yearly physical, President Joe Biden, 81, “continues to be fit for duty,” according to a letter his doctor sent on Wednesday. Biden is running for reelection in November and the concerns over his old age has put one of the oldest Presidents of USA in limelight.
Biden’s doctor, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, stated in a letter that although the president has had some hip pain, he is acclimating well to a new gadget that helps manage his sleep apnea and exercises five times a week.
Following a physical examination that sent Biden to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for more than two and a half hours, O’Connor wrote in a six-page memo on the president’s health, “President Biden is a healthy, active, robust, 81-year-old male who remains fit to successfully execute the duties of the presidency.”
Biden’s Health Update: Fit for Service, Despite Concerns About Age
Biden “feels well and this year’s physical identifies no new concerns,” the message continued. Should he be elected to a second term, Biden would become the oldest president in US history at the age of 86.
Biden’s most recent physical matched the one from February of last year when O’Connor called him “fit” to serve in the White House and “healthy, vigorous.”
Despite this, people are wary of his advanced age going into this year’s race since they have seen his stumbles, coughing fits, sluggish gait, and even his fall from a bicycle. Following his Wednesday return to the White House, Biden spoke at a crime-fighting event and said that, in terms of his health, “everything is squared away” and “there is nothing different from last year.”
He also made jokes about how people would believe he was too young given his age. The 77-year-old former president is expected to secure the Republican nomination later this month, putting him one step closer to facing him again in November. Before Biden broke his record by being inaugurated at 78 in 2021, Trump held the record for the oldest American president to be inaugurated aged 70 when he assumed office in 2017.
Biden’s Physical and Cognitive Health
According to O’Connor’s analysis, Biden’s arthritic alterations in his spine were the cause of his stiff walking, which was not worse than it was the previous year. Additionally, he stated that the president saw “some increased left hip discomfort.”
To address his sleep apnea, he started using a continuous positive airway pressure, or CPAP, machine at night last summer. According to O’Connor, the president has reacted favorably to the treatment and is “diligently compliant” about using it. His memory was frequently criticized in a recent special counsel report on the probe into his handling of sensitive materials, which was dubbed “hazy,” “fuzzy,” “faulty,” “poor,” and having “significant limitations.” It was also reported that he was unable to recollect significant events in his own life, such as the passing of his son Beau or his time as vice president.
However, in a statement to reporters on the day of the report’s publication, Biden said, “My memory is fine,” and he became noticeably irate when he denied forgetting his 46-year-old son’s death from brain cancer in 2015.
O’Connor participated in the physical examination together with a group of twenty other medical professionals, according to White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. When asked why O’Connor and his neurologist “don’t believe he needs one,” Jean-Pierre said that O’Connor and him weren’t doing a cognitive test as part of the physical examination.
Many Americans Democrats included have voiced concerns about his running for a second term in the upcoming election this autumn. In an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research study conducted before the 2022 midterm elections, 52% of Democrats said that Biden should run for reelection. Now, just 37% of Democrats share that opinion.
In response, he says that wisdom comes with age and has started to aim at Trump for his recent embarrassing public remarks. During a taping of “Late Night With Seth Meyers” in New York on Monday, the president made light of the fact that he thought Trump had called his wife Melania “Mercedes” during a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference over the weekend. However, the Trump campaign clarified that he was referring to political commentator Mercedes Schlapp.
