Mental Status Exam Flashcards
What’s a comprehensive assessment?
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
What is a focused assessment?
Collection of specific info about particular concerns, narrower in scope/more present orientated.
What is the mental status exam?
Assessment of individuals appearance, affect, behaviour, cognitive, thoughts. Used to evaluate disorders.
What is appearance?
Manner/appropriate dress, personal hygiene, pupil size, identifying characteristics- tattoos. Physical signs (skin tone, energy level, nutritional status).
Psychomotor activity?
Behaviour during interview, posture, gait, coordination, facial expression, gestures, activity. Cues to emotional state- muscle tension, repetitive movements, restlessness, perspiration
Attitude?
Toward interviewer- accommodating, friendly, apathetic, bored, guarded, hostile, evasive, suspicious, open
What is mood?
Pervasive and sustained emotion that colours person’s perception of world. What person reports about their emotional state.
Different types of mood?
- Negative (anger, fright, guilt, anxious, sadness, envy, disgust
- Positive (happy, pride, relief, love)
- Ambiguous/borderline (hope, compassion, empathy, sympathy)
- Euthymic (calm, cheerful)
- Euphoric (elated)
- Dysphoric (depressed, disturbed, distressed)
What is affect?
Expression of emotion manifested in observable behaviours.
Affected ranges? 7 of them
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)
Speech?
Conveys info about understanding/responds to social clues. Note rate, fluency, quality, quantity.
different rates of speech?
Slow, hesitant, fast, pressure-mania, aphasia-loose ability to produce speech
What is verbose?
contains more words then neccsary
What is perception?
Take in sensory info from environment and process that info into mental representations.
What’s a hallucination?
False sensory perceptions not associated with external stimuli and not shared by others. Can involve all 5 senses.
What’s an illusion?
Misperception or misrepresentation of real sensory stimuli (like wind calling your name)
What are delusions of control?
Belief that one’s thoughts, feeling, or will are being controlled by outside forces.
What is thought broadcasting?
Belief that ones thoughts are obvious to others/being broadcast to world
What is thought insertion?
Belief that thoughts/ideas are being inserted into ones mind by someone/something
What is a somatic delusion?
false belief involving the body or bodily functions
What is de-personalization?
The belief that ones self or ones body is strange/unreal.
What is erotomania?
Belief that someone unknown to the individual is in love with them or involved in a relationship with them.
What is nihilism?
Belief that one is dead or nonexistent
What is loosening of association?
Lack of a logical relationship between thoughts/ideas. Conversation shifts topics in an unrelated manner. Difficult/confusing to follow
What is circumstantiality?
Individuals take a long time to make a point because conversation in indirect/contains excessive unnecessary detail
What is tangentiality?
Speaker doesn’t return to a central point or answer the questions posed.
Thought blocking?
Abrupt pause or interruption in train of thoughts and individual can’t recall what they were saying
What is neologisms?
Creation of new words
What is perseveration?
Persisting response to stimulus even after a new stimulus has been presented. Like what day is it- monday, what time is it- monday
What is clang association?
Use of words/phrases that have similar sounds but aren’t associated in their meaning.
Echolalia?
Persistent echoing or repetition of words/phrases said by others
What is verbigeration?
Meaningless repetition of incoherent words/sentences. Associated with psychotic states/cognitive impairment
What is pressured speech?
Speech that’s increased in rate/volume and is often empathetic and difficult to interrupt
What is sensorium and what is included (5 parts)?
LOC- alert, lethargic, drowsy…
Orientation- person, place, time
Memory- immediate recall, short/long term
Attention/concentration
Comprehension/abstract reasoning
What’s judgement and insight?
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
Suicide part?
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
Assaultive and homicidal ideas?
Do you intend to harm someone, do you have a plan, do you have tools for the plan
Social domain part?
Legal status, quality of life, culture, spiritual, family, functional status, living situation, occupation
What are delusions?
False or fixed belief based on an incorrect inference about reality.
