Ice cream used to treat dementia?

 Athena Horne:

“President” Joe Biden’s obsession with ice cream has been front and center since his basement-gimp campaign days. It’s humanizing and disarming, his handlers must assume, much like dressing up child-grooming behaviors with rainbows and story hours. And in recent days, Biden has been playing up his food fetish more than ever.

My colleague Robert Spencer wrote about the man’s incredibly inappropriate monologue about his favorite frozen treat on Monday when he was supposed to be addressing a massacre of Christian elementary school students and staff. It was so off the hook, you have to see it to believe it:

“My name is Joe Biden. I’m Dr. Jill Biden’s husband,” began the nation’s leader. (For some reason, the audience was as loopy as he was and erupted in laughter throughout the odd preamble.) Biden got right to the important business at hand: “And I eat Jeni’s Ice Cream, chocolate chip. I came down because I heard there was chocolate chip ice cream. By the way, I have a whole refrigerator full upstairs. You think I’m kidding, I’m not.” My God, man, who cares? Three school kids were just murdered.

We often wonder what the senescent president’s handlers shoot Biden up with to get him through appearances and speeches. But it is more evident by the day that they are also resorting to the old caregiver trick of soothing their dementia patient by feeding him all the ice cream he wants.

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“Dementia…causes an increase in frustration with all kinds of events,” instructs the Alzheimer’s Association in a tract called “The Power of Ice Cream.” “It would be great if those afflicted could notice their feelings of frustration building up and then engage in self-soothing behaviors, as most of us would.” But, “They simply do not have the awareness of such feelings or the coping skills to deal with them. Dementia has taken those coping skills away.” Instead, says the association, a frustrated dementia patient may become angry or agitated.

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What’s a handler to do to keep the putative president vaguely presidential? Ice cream to the rescue! Advises the Alzheimer’s Association:

Ice cream has the power to immediately elicit soothing feelings at the very first taste of a single spoon-full. It erases all the negative feelings related to the frustration and continues to stimulate pleasure receptors in the brain with every new scoop. And dementia (here is the best part!) allows one to fully enjoy the treat, with no concerns for calories, weight gain or dietary needs, completely guilt free! For people with dementia, ice cream is far more effective and safe than Prozac, or any other “happy” drug on the market!

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I wonder if it is regularly served in retirement communities?  Biden certainly seems to enjoy it.