45's cognitive test was created by Lebanese immigrant to Canada

[Tanuki]

http://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/canada-news-pmn/how-an-immigrant-to-canada-helped-donald-trump-prove-his-mental-health/amp?__twitter_impression=true

....."Ziad Nasreddine — who designed the test.

The Lebanese-Canadian neurologist learned from a reporter Tuesday afternoon that the White House had selected the Montreal Cognitive Assessment to test the president’s faculties after days of speculation about his state.

This was the test Nasreddine developed as a young researcher two decades ago, in an effort to quickly assess, within 10 or 12 minutes, whether someone has suffered light cognitive impairment or the onset of Alzheimer’s disease, by asking them to perform tasks such as drawing a clock, identifying animals and remembering words.

....Nasreddine came to Canada as a teenager with his Druze family during the civil war in his homeland, Lebanon. He was 15. He, his widowed mother, and his sisters came to visit an uncle for the summer on 1983 — and, with their country ravaged by sectarian strife, they stayed.

They applied for permanent residency, he went to school, eventually moved to the U.S. to attend University of California, Los Angeles, and moved home in the 1990s when he designed the cognitive test.

He recognizes the irony of his test having helped a president who kept out war refugees, promoted a Muslim travel ban, is working to end chain migration where relatives help other relatives immigrate and reportedly used crude terms during Oval Office meetings to describe poor countries immigrants come from.

He says he hopes the president draws some lessons from his story.

“I’m an immigrant,” said Nasreddine.

“It’s an honour for me to be able to contribute, to assessing the president of the United States. No matter who the person is, for me it’s an honour. … I think immigrants can be proud that they are contributing. And this is a good example, I think, that will be helpful to change views about immigration. And maybe for Mr. Trump himself to consider immigrants as contributors to advancing science, advancing our societies.”