Mental Status Exam Flashcards
1
Q
What is the MSE?
A
- Psychiatric equivalent to physical examination
- Description of patient’s appearance, speech, actions, and thoughts during the interview
- Changes day to day and even hour to hour
2
Q
Goals of MSE
A
- Gather baseline
- identify actual and potential problems
- assist team in making accurate diagnosis
3
Q
Components of MSE
A
- Appearance and Behavior
- Motor Activity
- Speech
- Mood/affect
- Thought content/process
- Cognition
- Perceptual disturbances
- Abstract reasoning
- Insight and Judgment
4
Q
Appearance and Behavior
A
- General description of how the patient looks and behaves during interview
- Hygiene
- Eye contact
- Dress/grooming
- Posture
- Height/Weight
- Age and appearance congruent
5
Q
Motor Activity
A
- Tremors
- Tics
- Mannerisms and gestures
- Hyperactivity/psychomotor retardation
- Restless/agitation
- Gait
- Echopraxia
6
Q
Speech
A
- Tone
- Rate: slow or pressured
- Volume
- Aphasia
- fluency
7
Q
Mood
A
- Patient’s internal and sustained emotional state
- Subjective
- Record in patient’s words
8
Q
Affect
A
- emotional reaction associated with an experience
- Expression of mood or what the patient’s mood appears to be to clinician
- congruent/incongruent
9
Q
Thought Content
A
- Delusions
- Suicidality
- Homicidality
- Obsessions
- Paranoia
- Magical thinking
- Phobia
- Religiosity
10
Q
Thought Process
A
- Flight of Ideas
- Echolalia
- perservation
- word salad
- neologisms
- Tangentiality/circumstantiality
- concrete thinking
11
Q
Perceptual Disturbances
A
- Hallucinations: auditory, tactile, gustatory, visual, olfactory
- De-realization
- Depersonalization
12
Q
Cognition
A
- Alertness
- Orientation
- Concentration
- Memory
- Calculation
13
Q
Abstract Reasoning
A
- ability to shift back and forth between general concepts and specific examples
- cultural and educational limitations should be kept in mind
14
Q
Insight and Judgment
A
- Ability to solve problems and make decisions
- knowledge about self
- adaptive/maladaptive use of coping mechanisms
15
Q
Mini Mental Status Exam
A
- Focus on cognitive aspect of mental functioning
- used to track changes in cognitive state
- usually administered during initial evaluation
