Chapt 5: Mental Status Assessment Flashcards
What is mental status?
Mental status is a person’s emotional (feeling) and cognitive (knowing) function.
When are mental disorders apparent?
when a person’s response is much greater than the expected reaction to a traumatic life event.
What are organic mental disorders?
caused by brain disease of known specific organic cause (e.g., delirium, dementia, alcohol and drug intoxication, and withdrawal)
What are psychiatric mental disorders?
in which an organic etiology has not yet been established (e.g., anxiety disorder
or schizophrenia)
What is consciousness?
Being aware of one’s own existence, feelings, and thoughts and of the environment. This is the most elementary of mental status functions.
What is language?
Using the voice to communicate one’s thoughts and feelings. This is a basic tool of humans, and its loss has a heavy social impact on the individual.
What is affect? What is mood?
Both of these elements deal with the prevailing feelings.
-Affect is a temporary expression of feelings or state of mind.
-Mood is more durable, a prolonged display of feelings that color the whole emotional life.
What is orientation?
The awareness of the objective world in relation to the self, including person, place, and time.
What is attention?
The power of concentration, the ability to focus on one specific thing without being distracted by many environmental stimuli.
What is memory?
The ability to lay down and store experiences and perceptions for later recall. Recent memory evokes day-to-day events; remote memory brings up years’ worth of experiences.
What is abstract reasoning?
Pondering a deeper meaning beyond the concrete and literal.
What is thought process? What is thought content?
Process: The way a person thinks; the logical train of thought.
Content: What the person thinks—specific ideas, beliefs, the use of words.
What is perception?
An awareness of objects through the five senses.
What is ABCT?
Appearance (Ex: Person’s posture is erect, with no involuntary body movements. Dress and grooming are appropriate for season and setting.)
Behavior (Ex: Person is alert, with appropriate facial expression and fluent, understandable speech. Affect and verbal responses are appropriate.)
Cognition (Ex: Oriented to time, person, place. Able to attend cooperatively with
examiner. Recent and remote memory intact.)
Thoughts (Process and Content) (Ex: Perceptions and thought processes are logical and coherent. No suicidal ideation.)
