Dr. James Cho is a board-certified psychiatrist with deep experience across general, forensic, emergency, and geriatric psychiatry, as well as academic medicine. Based in St. Louis, Missouri, his clinical work today serves a patient population of more than 200 individuals, with a median age of 65 —many of whom present with complex psychiatric and cognitive considerations.
Throughout his career, Dr. Cho has seen firsthand how challenging it can be to differentiate psychiatric symptoms from cognitive decline using interviews alone. While clinical judgment remains essential, he believes psychiatry benefits greatly from objective tools that add clarity and consistency to the diagnostic process.
“With BrainCheck, you’re going to have better clinical outcomes,” Dr. Cho explains. “It gives you more information, some patients even find it fun to use. This is a win-win-win.”
BrainCheck Assess introduced something Dr. Cho sees as critical to modern psychiatric practice: standardized, objective cognitive data. The assessments provide benchmarks that clinicians can reference over time—bringing transparency and measurable insight into evaluations that have historically been difficult to quantify.
“Psychiatry is often criticized for being too subjective. Well, here are objective readings. We actually have a benchmark we can work with. It’s showing us more information,” notes Dr. Cho.
For Dr. Cho, that objectivity isn’t just clinically valuable—it’s ethically important. He emphasizes that BrainCheck aligns with doing what’s right for patients, rather than using questionable practices to drive revenue.
In addition to the clinical benefits, Dr. Cho highlights how BrainCheck improves the patient experience. Many patients enjoy interacting with the assessment, reviewing their results, and gaining a clearer understanding of their cognitive health.
“Some patients really delight in seeing their results,” he says. From a provider standpoint, BrainCheck also removes bias and pressure from the testing process itself. “The unbiased approach is important,” Dr. Cho explains. “You’re not standing over someone’s shoulder doing pen-and-paper tests. These are well-established, solid tests that are inconvenient to do outside of this mechanism. So it’s a great product.”
Since adopting BrainCheck in September 2023, Dr. Cho has completed 215 assessments, averaging 18 per month, with a peak month of 22 assessments. This steady utilization reflects BrainCheck’s role as a core component of his practice, not an occasional add-on.
By integrating cognitive assessment into routine psychiatric care, Dr. Cho has established qualitative baselines for his patients, strengthened diagnostic confidence, and reinforced trust through objective, data-driven insight.
Today, BrainCheck supports Dr. Cho’s commitment to ethical, informed, and patientcentered psychiatry—bringing clarity to complex cases and helping ensure that care decisions are grounded in both experience and evidence.