Parkinson’s Disease (PD) Neurological II Practice Exam

Graphesthesia is a cortical sensory test that evaluates the ability to recognize symbols traced on the skin, reflecting intact somatosensory processing in the parietal cortex. Keeping the eyes closed prevents the patient from using visual information to identify the symbol, ensuring the response comes from tactile perception rather than sight. If vision were used, a patient could guess the symbol visually, which would mask true sensory integration deficits. Therefore, performing graphesthesia with the eyes closed is the standard approach to isolate tactile recognition and accurately assess cortical sensory function.