Mental Status

Question 1

What are the components of a Mental Status Examination?

Answer 1

ASEPTIC
Appearance/Behaviour
Speech
Emotions (Mood & Affect)
Perception (Auditory/Visual hallucinations)
Thought content & Process (SI & HI)
Insight & Judgement
Cognition

Question 2

Define Erotomanic

Answer 2

Believing that another person desires you romantically

Question 3

Define Grandiose

Answer 3

Believing that one is a very powerful or important person

Question 4

Define Jealous

Answer 4

Believing that one’s mate is unfaithful

Question 5

Define Persecutory

Answer 5

Believing that one is being singles out for harm by others (plot by people in power)

Question 6

Define Somatic

Answer 6

Believing that the body is changing in an unusual way

Question 7

Define Thought insertion

Answer 7

Believing that another person, group, or external force controls thoughts

Question 8

Define Thought withdrawal

Answer 8

believing that others are taking thoughts out of a person’s mind

Question 9

Define Thought broadcasting

Answer 9

Believing that one’s thoughts are being involuntarily broadcasted to others

Question 10

Define Ideas of reference

Answer 10

Giving personal significance to trivial events: perceiving events as relating to you when they do not

Question 11

Define Ideas of influence

Answer 11

Believing that you have somehow influenced events that are out of your control

Question 12

Define Loose association

Answer 12

These threads are interrupted or illogically connected; thinking becomes haphazard, illogical, and difficult to follow

Question 13

Define Circumstantiality

Answer 13

Refers to the inclusion of unnecessary and often tedious details in one’s conversation (e.g., describing your breakfast when asked how your day is going).

Question 14

Define Tangentiality

Answer 14

is a departure from the main topic to talk about less important information; the patient goes off on tangents in a way that takes the conversation off-topic.

Question 15

Define Neologisms

Answer 15

are made-up words (or idiosyncratic uses of existing words) that have meaning for the person but a different or nonexistent meaning to others (e.g., “I was going to tell him the mannerologies of his hospitality won’t do”). This eccentric use of words represents disorganized thinking and interferes with communication.

Question 16

Define Echolalia

Answer 16

is the pathological repeating of another’s words and is often seen in catatonia.

Question 17

Define Clang associations

Answer 17

Rhythmically rime
“Cinema I and II, last row. Row, row, row your boat. Don’t be a cutthroat. Cut your throat. Get your goat. Go out and vote. And so I wrote.”

Question 18

Define Word Salad

Answer 18

is a jumble of words that is meaningless to the listener—and perhaps to the speaker as well—because of an extreme level of disorganization.

Question 19

Define Thought blocking

Answer 19

any experience where a person suddenly finds themselves unable to think, speak, or move in response to events that are happening around them

Question 20

Define Flights of ideas

Answer 20

is a nearly continuous flow of accelerated speech with abrupt changes from topic to topic that are usually based on understandable associations or plays on words.

Question 21

What does it include in Cognition?

Answer 21

Memory testing
Languages
Attention/ concentration
Visual/ spatial process
Abstraction

Question 22

Define magical thinking

Answer 22

Patient believes that his thoughts/behaviour have control over specific situations/ people

“It snowed last night because I wished very, very hard that it would.”

Question 23

Define Avolition

Answer 23

Inability to initiate goal-directed activity

No interest, no motivation

Question 24

Define Apathy

Answer 24

Patient demonstrates an indifference to a disinterest in the nevironment

Question 25

Describe Physical anergia

Answer 25

Lack of energy