Inventor of gold-standard cognitive test suggests it’d be a ‘good thing’ for Biden to take exam

The doctor who invented one of the most popular mental cognitive assessments told The Post on Tuesday that it may be a good idea for aging politicians to take his test — after being asked about President Biden.

Canadian neurologist Dr. Ziad Nasreddine, who developed the famed Montreal Cognitive Assessment, sidestepped politics and declined to comment on Biden, 81, directly.

But when asked about the mounting public calls for Biden and former President Donald Trump, 77, to take the test, he replied, “It’s a good thing that we assess cognition the minute there’s any suspicion about cognitive function.

“If the test shows normal results, the likelihood of impairment is very low. Then everybody is reassured that this is maybe just normal aging — that we can all be forgetful and make mistakes. But it doesn’t mean that there’s a significant cognitive disorder happening,” he said.

Speculation and questions about Biden’s mental acuity have reached a fever pitch after a string of public lapses — and last week’s bombshell report from special counsel Robert Hur that heavily suggested Biden has “diminished faculties” and is a “well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.”

Nasreddine cautioned that “it’s extremely difficult to tell with conversation alone if there’s significant impairment.”

He spent just under a decade developing the MoCA test as a quicker and cheaper alternative to the roughly three- to five-hour extensive neuropsychological battery examinations.

His test features 30 questions administered in 10 minutes and instructs patients to identify animals and copy an image of a cube, among other challenges.

For example, one section of the test entails a list of words being read to the subject who is then instructed to list them back.

Another typical question instructs the subject to “Name the maximum number of words in one minute that begin with” a given letter such as “S.”

Trump famously took that exam back in 2018 under the guidance of then-White House physician Dr. Ronny Jackson, who is now a Republican congressman.

The 77-year-old former president occasionally boasts about his performance on the MoCA test,

“There’s only about 2% in this room can do it, but I did it. I did it very easily,” Trump crowed at an event in Las Vegas late last month.

“But I got mocked — they said, ‘Oh, that’s so easy.’ It’s not easy. It’s not easy. Go home and try doing it.”

Nasreddine contended that notching a perfect score on that test is not an easy feat.

“The major misconception [is] people are saying that this is a test for kindergarten because it looks simple. But it’s not that simple. I mean almost only 10% of the population are able to get 30 out of 30,” he said.

Recently, Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley began disbursing copies of the exam, taunting both Trump and Biden to take it.

Nasreddine said, “She’s not supposed to do that.

“It’s not supposed to be given or self-administered,” he stressed of the test, noting a doctor must supervise the exam and that there’s a MoCA Xpresso assessment for the general public to use instead.

Biden is adamant that his “memory is fine,” and his lawyer, Bob Bauer, who was present during the five-hour interview with Hur last October, disputed the special counsel’s characterizations of the sitdown.

“Joe is 81, that’s true, but he’s 81 doing more in an hour than most people do in a day,” First Lady Jill Biden also argued in a recent message to supporters. “His age, with his experience and expertise, is an incredible asset, and he proves it every day.”

The White House is currently mulling its options about whether to push for the release of sections of Hur-Biden transcript.

Questions about Biden’s age have long haunted him. He is already the oldest president in US history and would be 86 after a hypothetical second term.

In an ABC News/Ipsos poll that dropped Sunday, an eye-popping 86% of US adults believe Biden is too old to complete another term.

Should Trump win and serve out a full term, he will narrowly edge out Biden as the oldest commander in chief.