Nervous System Flashcards
What are the twelve cranial nerves?
CN I (olfactory) CN II (optic) CN III (oculomotor) CN IV (trochlear) CN V (trigeminal) CN VI (abducens) CN VII (facial) CN VIII (vestibulococchlear) CN IX (glossopharyngeal) CN X (vagus) CN XI (accessory) CN XII (hypoglossal)
What is the function of the Olfactory Nerve (CN I)?
sense of smell
What is the function of the Optic Nerve (CN II)?
vision
What is the function of the Oculomotor Nerve (CN III)?
- pupillary constriction
- opening the eye
- most EOMs
What is the function of the Trochlear Nerve (CN IV)?
inferior and medial movements of the eye
What is the function of the Trigeminal Nerve (CN V)?
- motor: temporal and masseter muscles, lateral pterygoids
- sensory: facial (ophthalmic, maxillary, and mandibular divisions)
What is the function of the Abducens Nerve (CN VI)?
lateral deviation of the eye
What is the function of the Facial Nerve (CN VII)?
- motor: facial movements and expressions (closing eye and mouth)
- sensory: taste on the anterior 2/3 of tongue
What is the function of the Vestibulocochlear Nerve (CN VIII)?
- hearing (cochlear division)
- balance (vestibular division)
What is the function of the Glossopharyngeal Nerve (CN IX)?
- motor: pharynx
- sensory: posterior portions of TM and ear canal, pharynx, posterior tongue (including taste), uvula
What is the function of the Vagus Nerve (CN X)?
- motor: palate, pharynx, larynx, uvula
- pharynx and larynx
What is the function of the Accessory Nerve (CN XI)?
- motor: SCM and upper portion of trapezius
What is the function of the Hypoglossal Nerve (CN XII)?
- motor: tongue
What are the aspects of the Mental Status Examination (MSE)?
- appearance and behavior
- speech
- affect
- mental content
- mental function
- judgment
- insight
- suicidal and homicidal risks
What are the components of Appearance and Behavior in the MSE?
- level of consciousness
- posture and motor behavior
- dress, grooming and personal hygiene
- facial expression
- manner
- relationship to people and things
What are the components of Speech in the MSE?
- quantity: talkative vs silent
- rate: fast vs slow
- volume: loud vs soft
- articulation of words
- fluency: look for hesitancies, disturbed inflections (monotone), circumlocations (word substitutions)
What are the components of Affect in the MSE?
- observable, usually episodic, feeling or tone expressed through voice, facial expression, and demeanor
What are the components of Mental Content in the MSE?
- what pt thinks about
- included level of insight and judgment
What are the components of Mental Function in the MSE?
assessed by vocab, fund of info, abstract thinking, calculations, construction of objects that have 2 or 3 dimensions
What are the components of Judgment in the MSE?
- process of comparing and evaluating alternatives when deciding on a course of action
- reflects values that may or may not be based on reality and social conventions or norms
What are the components of Insight in the MSE?
- awareness that symptoms of disturbed behaviors are normal or abnormal
- ability of pt to understand and acknowledge their illness or situation
What are the components of Suicidal/homicidal Risks in the MSE?
- ask direct questions
- depression is twice as common in women and is a frequent complaint of chronic medical illness
- screen high-risk patients for early signs of depression that are often missed: low self-esteem, loss of pleasure in daily activities, sleep disorders, difficulty concentrating or making decisions
What are the levels of consciousness? (5)
- alert: pt able to open eyes, look at you, respond fully and appropriately
- lethargic: drowsy but can open eyes, look at examiner and respond; falls back to sleep easily
- obtunded: opens eyes and looks at you; offers confused responses, has lack of interest in the environment
- stuporous: wakens only with painful stimuli; verbal responses slow or absent; unresponsive unless stimuli is present
- comatose: unarousable to any stimuli; GCS
What is decorticate posture?
- upper extremities flexed at elbows and held closely to body
- lower extremities internally rotated and extended
- thought to occur when brain stem is not inhibited by motor function of cerebral cortex
What is decerebrate posture?
- pts with extensive brain stem damage to pons and lesions that compress lower thalamus and midbrain
- rigid extension
- arms fully extended, forearms pronated, wrists/fingers flexed
- jaw clenched, neck extended, back may be arched
- feet plantar flexed
- may occur spontaneously, intermittently, or in response to stimuli
What is aphasia?
- disorder in producing/understanding speech
- causes: lesions in dominant cerebral hemisphere (L)
- Broca’s aphasia: (expressive) nonfluent, slow, articulation is impaired but meaningful (with nouns, transitive verbs, important adjs)
- Wernicke’s: (receptive) fluent, rapid, articulation good but sentences lack meaning; words malformed/invented
What is dysarthria?
- difficulty speaking due to abnormalities of oral and facial muscles that produce speech
- words may be nasal, slurred, or indistinct
- causes: motor lesions of the central or peripheral nervous system, parkinsonism, cerebellar disease
What are paraphasias?
words are malformed, wrong, or invented
How do you test for aphasia?
- word comprehension: one-staged and two-staged commands
- repetition: repeat phrase of one-syllable words
- naming
- reading comprehension
- writing
What is circumstantiality?
- speech characterized by indirection and delay in reaching the point due to unnecessary detail
- components have meaningful connection
- pts with obsessions
What is derailment?
- shifting from subject to others that are unrelated/related only obliquely without realizing subjects have no connection
- schizophrenia, manic episodes, psychosis
What is a flight of ideas?
- continuous flow of accelerated speech
- changing abruptly from topic to topic
- plays on words, distracting stimuli, no progress to sensible conversation
- manic episodes
What are neologisms?
- invented/distorted words or words with new/highly idiosyncratic meanings
- schizophrenia, psychotic disorders, aphasia
What is blocking?
- interruption of speech midsentence/before completion of an idea
- losing a thought
- profound in schizophrenia
What is confabulation?
- fabrication of facts/events in response to questions in order to fill in gaps in impaired memory
- Korsakoff’s syndrome from alcoholism