When was Joe Biden’s last physical exam? Latest medical information published by the White House
Questions are swirling about Biden’s ability to be president for another four years after his poor showing at the first debate. When was his last physical?
Voters have expressed concerns about the age of the two presumptive presidential nominees for the Democratic and Republican parties. Whichever one wins, they will be the oldest person ever elected to the highest office in the United States.
A majority of registered voters who participated in a Marquette Law School poll conducted in March felt both were “too old to be president.” There are worries about each candidate’s physical fitness and their cognitive abilities as they’ve both had their share of verbal fumbles in recent months.
The latter issue came into stark relief after the first presidential debate between the two rivals in the 2024 election cycle. Biden’s poor performance set off alarm bells in the Democrat Party that he may not be up to the task of defeating Trump in November. But what have his doctors said about his health and mental acuity?
When was Joe Biden’s last physical exam? Latest medical information published by the White House
President Biden went in for his last physical at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in February of this year. The results were released by the White House in a six-page summary which said that “no new concerns” were identified and it was “essentially unchanged from baseline.” According to his physician, Kevin C. O’Connor, in his medical assessment said that Biden is a “healthy, active, robust 81-year-old male, who remains fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency.”
In the president’s physical “an extremely detailed neurological exam was again reassuring” the health summary stated. “There were no findings of cerebellar or other central neurological disorder” with conditions such as stroke, multiple sclerosis or Parkinson’s ruled out among others. However, no cognitive test was performed as Biden’s doctors didn’t feel that he needed one according to White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre speaking to reporters.
“He passes a cognitive test every day,” she said, explaining that Biden “is able to do the work every day that is more rigorous than it would be for any 15-minute [cognitive test].”
Trump for his part released a three-paragraph letter on his own health in November last year without any specific details of the results of the examination two months prior. The doctor that wrote the note is a long-time member of Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, Bruce Aronwald, an osteopathic physician from New Jersey.
US presidents are not required to have an annual health examination, nor is it mandatory to make the results public knowledge said Jacob Appel, a physician and professor at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, speaking the Associated Press. However, it has become customary to do so since Richard Nixon became the first modern president to do so according to his research into the medical histories of US Presidents.