CNN’s Dr. Gupta: Biden Needs to Undergo ‘Detailed Cognitive Testing’

CNN’s chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta said Friday on “Newsroom” that President Joe Biden should undergo cognitive testing following his debate performance.

Gupta said, “Some of the signs that we saw that people observed during the debate, the slowness of speech, the halting of speech, sometimes a confused ramblings again, these are types of things that can be explained by lots of different things and you cannot make a diagnosis simply by observation. But that’s why it may warrant more testing if if he were my patient to frankly, if you were my father, I would advocate for this sort of testing again in large part because there might be something you can do about it.”

Discussing Biden’s previous medical testing, Gupta said, “Well, we know that it did not include a cognitive test, something that we look for and the White House was asked about that, and the response was the doctor said that there was no need for any kind of cognitive test.”

He added, “It sounded like a pretty thorough exam, as these presidential physicals often are, 20-some specialists were involved, including a neurologist. And what we heard, in addition to sort of basic information about his physical health, was that there was no evidence of having had a stroke, multiple sclerosis, or Parkinson‘s disease as well, which was notable. But one thing to say about that is that Parkinson‘s disease is the most common cause, typically, of Parkinsonism, but it‘s not the only cause. And there was really no mention of really ruling out other things that could potentially be causing Parkinsonism. So, again, this all gets back to why you would possibly do this more detailed cognitive testing, as well as testing for things like movement disorders.”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN