Salgado’s responses are not typical of Alzheimer’s patients, experts say

Questioned by Francisco Proença de Carvalho, lawyer for the former president of BES, about whether an Alzheimer’s patient has to know the name of his children, following Ricardo Salgado having said that he did not know his children’s names during the psychological assessment, expert Joaquim Cerejeira said he “doesn’t have it, but he typically knows”. “Our hypothesis is low effort”, considered the psychiatrist. Salgado also answered several questions from experts about his personal and professional life “I don’t know, I don’t remember”, answers that also raised doubts among experts.

“Normally a patient with Alzheimer’s doesn’t say I don’t know. It’s not typical for an Alzheimer’s patient. When you say ‘I don’t know or ‘I don’t remember’ it is an indicator of low effort. A patient with depression gives up answering more easily, a patient with Alzheimer’s answers incorrectly, but makes an effort to answer. It is the standard that appears in psychiatry books”, explained the expert, adding that “we cannot exclude that from time to time he does not say that he does not know because he is already tired”. “It’s a long interview and sometimes you can say you don’t know so you don’t have to try so hard”, he said after the defendant’s lawyer asked whether the experts considered other hypotheses.

Maria Isabel Santana, heard earlier, also mentioned that “in the forensic examination, there was some insufficient or lesser effort in relation to old memories, such as children, but she remembered perfectly the book she was reading”. “This is not typical of Alzheimer’s disease. It means that there may be an insufficient standard”, highlighted the expert.

Ricardo Salgado is accused of two crimes of active corruption and one crime of money laundering.