Mental Status Exam

Question 1

What are the broad categories in the mental status exam?

Answer 1

1. Appearance
2. Activity and behavior
3. Cooperation and attitude
4. Speech
5. Mood
6. Affect
7. Thought process
   8: Thought content
8. Suicidality / homicidality
9. Perception
10. Insight / judgment
11. Cognition

Question 2

What is included in Appearance?

Answer 2

1. Apparent age relative to true age
2. Attire
3. Grooming / hygiene
4. Body habitus
5. Physical marks (tattoos, scars, body piercings)
6. Jewelry and cosmetics

Question 3

What is included in Activity and Behavior?

Answer 3

1. Level of consciousness
2. Eye contact
3. Posture, activity, and movement, including:
   a. Psychomotor agitation or retardation
   b. Stereotypies (repetitions, e.g. twirling hair, tapping foot)
   c. Involuntary movements (automatisms, catatonia, tics, tremors)

Question 4

What is included in Speech?

Answer 4

1. Fluency
2. Rate
3. Rhythm
4. Volume
5. Articulation
6. Spontaneity (degree of engagement)
7. Latency

Question 5

What is included in Affect?

Answer 5

1. Quality
2. Intensity
3. Changeability
4. Congruency with stated mood
5. Appropriateness to situation

Question 6

What is included in Mood?

Answer 6

1. Quality

2. Intensity

Question 7

What is included in Thought Process?

Answer 7

1. Organization
2. Coherence
3. Flow of ideas
   4 Directness of repiles

Question 8

What are 9 different patterns of thought process?

Answer 8

1. Goal-directed
2. Circumstantial
3. Tangential
4. Flight of ideas
5. Loose associations
6. Derailment
7. Slowed
8. Thought blocking
9. Perseveration

Question 9

What is included in Thought Content?

Answer 9

1. Delusions (including Capgras delusion of imposters)
2. Overvalued ideas
3. Obsessions
4. Phobias
5. Suicidal ideation
6. Homicidal ideation

Question 10

What is included in Perception?

Answer 10

1. Hallucination
2. Illusion
3. Depersonalization (person feels unreal)
4. Derealization (external world seems unreal or 2-d)
5. Micropsia (things seem small - seen in DTs)
6. Hyperesthesia (intense perceptions)
7. Deja vu

Question 11

What is included in Cognition?

Answer 11

1. Orientation
2. Attention / concentration (serial 7s, “world” backwards)
3. Registration and short-term memory (3 object-recall)
4. Abstraction
5. Fund of knowledge