Enough vs. More: Neuropsychological testing is more useful than genetic testing in the baseline evaluation of Parkinson disease

Abstract

In conclusion, baseline neuropsychological testing provides a vast amount of unique cognitive, psychiatric, behavioral, and psychosocial information that is useful to individuals with PD, care partners, and treatment team providers. As a baseline examination, it provides opportunities for comparison purposes in the future, a prediction of risk assessment and future treatment needs, and at the time of evaluation for clinical treatment to improve quality of life. Such information is not captured by genetic testing, although the ideal path moving forward would be to perform both neuropsychological testing and genetic testing at baseline.