MSE Flashcards
Appearance descriptors include:
- Distinctive features
- Clothing
- Grooming
- Hygiene
Behaviour descriptors include:
- Facial expression
- Body language
- Gestures
- Posture
- Eye contact
- Rapport and social engagement
- Arousal level (e.g., calm, agitated)
- Typically anxious or aggressive behaviours
- Psychomotor activity
- Distinctive/unusual features (e.g., tremors, slowed, repetitive, involuntary movements).
Affect descriptors include:
- Range (e.g., restricted, blunted, flat, expansive)
- appropriateness (e.g., appropriate, inappropriate, incongruous).
- Stability (e.g., stable, labile).
Mood descriptors may include:
- Euthymic
- Dysphoric
- Euphoric
- Depressed
- Anxious
- Irritability
- Apathetic
- Labile
- Flat
- Blunted
- Angry
- Agitated
- Manic
Speech descriptors may include:
- Rate (e.g., rapid, pressured, slowed).
- Volume (e.g., loud, normal, soft).
- Tonality (e.g., monotonous, tremulous, melodic)
- Fluency (e.g., normal, hesitant, stammering, halting).
- Quantity (e.g., minimal, voluble, verbose, mute).
Cognition descriptors include:
- Consciousness (e.g., alert, drowsy, intoxicated (?), stuporose)
- Orientation/disorientation (person., place, time, situation)
- Memory functioning (immediate, short term, remote).
- Attention and concentration (distractibility, focus)
- Insight (intact, limited, absent).
- Judgement (intact, impaired).
- Thought processes (e.g., logical, disorganised, tangential, circumstantial).
Thought content descriptors include:
- Delusions
- Overvalued ideas/unreasonable beliefs
- Preoccupations
- Depressive thoughts
- Suicidal, self-harm, homicidal, aggressive.
- Obsessions.
Somebody who is overly cheerful and optimistic may be described…
Euphoric
Somebody who suddenly shifts from one topic to another in conversation without a logical connection may be described as…
Tangential
Somebody who answers questions with unnecessary details and deviates from the main point may be described as…
Circumstantial
Somebody who hears or sees things that are not present may be described as…
Hallucinating
Somebody who is difficult to understand due to speech that lacks logical sequence may be described as…
disorganised
Somebody who is difficult to understand due to speech that lacks logical sequence may be described as…
perserverating
Somebody who has an irrational belief that cannot be corrected by logic may be described as…
Delusional
Somebody who is unable to initiate and maintain goal-directed activities may be described as…
Avolitional
Somebody who appears to have a reduced emotional expression may be described as…
Blunted
Somebody who suddenly stops speaking in the middle of a sentence may be described as…
thought blocking
Somebody who has an exaggerated sense of self-importance may be described as…
Grandoise
Somebody who rapidly shifts between different emotional states may be described as…
Labile
Somebody who is physically restless and unable to stay still may be described as…
agitated
Somebody who experiences false sensory perceptions related to body or bodily functions may be described as…
somatic hallucinating
Somebody who uses vague or nonsensical language that lacks meaning may be described as…
Incoherent
Somebody who appears indifferent or lacking in emotional response may be described as…
Flat
Somebody who exhibits repetitive, purposeless movements such as rocking or pacing may be described as…
stereotypic
Somebody who is preoccupied with an unfounded fear of having a serious illness may be described as…
Hypocondrial
Somebody who has an unusually heightened or overly responsive sensitivity to stimuli may be described as…
Hypervigilant
Somebody who lacks the ability to recognize or understand their own mental health condition may be described as…
lacking insight
