Mental Status Exam

Question 1

What’s a comprehensive assessment?

Answer 1

Develops holistic understanding of individual. It’s collaborative and forms basis for dx and treatment plans. Complete health hx/all dimension of health/physical exam

Question 2

What is a focused assessment?

Answer 2

Collection of specific info about particular concerns, narrower in scope/more present orientated.

Question 3

What is the mental status exam?

Answer 3

Assessment of individuals appearance, affect, behaviour, cognitive, thoughts. Used to evaluate disorders.

Question 4

What appearnce?

Answer 4

Manner/appropriate dress, personal hygiene, pupil size, identifying characteristics- tattoos. Physical signs (skin tone, energy level, nutritional status).

Question 5

Psychomotor activity?

Answer 5

Behaviour during interview, posture, gait, coordination, facial expression, gestures, activity. Cues to emotional state- muscle tension, repetitive movements, restlessness, perspiration

Question 6

Attitude?

Answer 6

Toward interviewer- accommodating, friendly, apathetic, bored, guarded, hostile, evasive, suspicious, open

Question 7

What is mood?

Answer 7

Pervasive and sustained emotion that colours person’s perception of world. What person reports about their emotional state.

Question 8

Different types of mood?

Answer 8

1. Negative (anger, fright, guilt, anxious, sadness, envy, disgust
2. Positive (happy, pride, relief, love)
3. Ambiguous/borderline (hope, compassion, empathy, sympathy)
4. Euthymic (calm, cheerful)
5. Euphoric (elated)
6. Dysphoric (depressed, disturbed, distressed)

Question 9

What is affect?

Answer 9

Expression of emotion manifested in observable behaviours.

Question 10

Affected ranges? 7 of them

Answer 10

1- full range (express several emotions consistent with their stated feeling and content of what they’re saying)
2- constricted affect (little outward emotion/monotone)
3- heightened affect (mania, excitement, anxiety)
4- Blunted affect (limited emotional expression)
5- flat affect (near abscnse of emotional expression, monotone voice, little/no facial express
6- stability (normal)
7- labile (open to change)

Question 11

Speech?

Answer 11

Conveys info about understanding/responds to social clues. Note rate, fluency, quality, quantity.

Question 12

different rates of speech?

Answer 12

Slow, hesitant, fast, pressure-mania, aphasia-loose ability to produce speech

Question 13

What is verbose?

Answer 13

contains more words then neccsary

Question 14

What is perception?

Answer 14

Take in sensory info from environment and process that info into mental representations.

Question 15

What’s a hallucination?

Answer 15

False sensory perceptions not associated with external stimuli and not shared by others. Can involve all 5 senses.

Question 16

What’s an illusion?

Answer 16

Misperception or misrepresentation of real sensory stimuli (like wind calling your name)

Question 17

What are delusions?

Answer 17

Belief that one’s thoughts, feeling, or will are being controlled by outside forces.

Question 18

What is thought broadcasting?

Answer 18

Belief that ones thoughts are obvious to others/being broadcast to world

Question 19

What is thought insertion?

Answer 19

Belief that thoughts/ideas are being inserted into ones mind by someone/something

Question 20

What is a somatic delusion?

Answer 20

false belief involving the body or bodily functions

Question 21

What is de-personalization?

Answer 21

The belief that ones self or ones body is strange/unreal.

Question 22

What is erotomania?

Answer 22

Belief that someone unowned to the individual is in love with them or involved in a relationship with them.

Question 23

What is nihilism?

Answer 23

Belief that one is dead or nonexistent

Question 24

What is loosening of association?

Answer 24

Lack of a logical relationship between thoughts/ideas. Conversation shifts topics in an unrelated manner. Difficult/confusing to follow

Question 25

What is circumstantiality?

Answer 25

Individuals take a long time to make a point because conversation in indirect/contains excessive unnecessary detail

Question 26

What is tangentiality?

Answer 26

Speaker doesn’t return to a central point or answer the questions posed.

Question 27

Thought blocking?

Answer 27

Abrupt pause or interruption in train of thoughts and individual can’t recall what they were saying

Question 28

What is neologisms?

Answer 28

Creation of new words

Question 29

What is perseveration?

Answer 29

Persisting response to stimulus even after a new stimulus has been presented. Like what day is it- monday, what time is it- monday

Question 30

What is clang association?

Answer 30

Use of words/phrases that have similar sounds but aren’t associated in their meaning.

Question 31

Echolalia?

Answer 31

Persistent echoing or repetition of words/phrases said by others

Question 32

What is verbigeration?

Answer 32

Meaningless repetition of incoherent words/sentences. Associated with psychotic states/cognitive impairment

Question 33

What is pressured speech?

Answer 33

Speech that’s increased in rate/volume and is often empathetic and difficult to interrupt

Question 34

What is sensorium and what is included?

Answer 34

LOC- alert, lethargic, drowsy…
Orientation- person, place, time
Memory- immediate recall, short/long term
Attention/concentration
Comprehension/abstract reasoning

Question 35

What’s judgement and insight?

Answer 35

J- ability to consider a situation/determine reasonable course of action after examining/analyzing possibilities, capacity to make decisions

I- awareness and understanding of their circumstances, awareness of thoughts/feelings

Question 36

Suicide part?

Answer 36

Have you thought to kill yourself, any suicidal thoughts, do you have a plan, do you have tools to carry out the plan, what keeps you from going

Question 37

Assaultive and homicidal ideas?

Answer 37

Do you intend to harm someone, do you have a plan, do you have tools for the plan

Question 38

Social domain part?

Answer 38

Legal status, quality of life, culture, spiritual, family, functional status, living situation, occupation