Neurologic Examination Flashcards
Use: Measuring occipitofrontal and body circumferences, size of skin lesions, length of extremities, etc.
What instrument?
Flexible steel measuring tape scored in metric units
Used for auscultation over the neck vessels, eyes, and cranium for bruits:
Stethoscope
Why do you use 3 tongue blades per px?
- Depressing tongue
- Elicit gag reflex
- Broken longitudinally for eliciting abdominal and plantar reflexes
What is the recommended Hz for tuning fork?
256 cps
Other use for tuning for other than vibratory sensation and hearing:
Temperature discrimination
Used for caloric irrigation of the ear
10 cc syringe
Used for eliciting muscle stretch reflex and muscle percussion for myotonia
Reflex hammer
Testing for astereognosis, instruments used:
Penny, nickel, dime, key, paper clip, and safety pin
PARTS OF A COMPLETE NEUROLOGIC EXAM
I. Mental Status Exam
II. Higher Cortical Function
III. Cranial Nerve
IV. Motor Examination
V. Muscle Stretch Reflexes – pathological reflexes VI. Cerebellar Function
VII. Gait
VIII. Sensory Exam
IX. Meningeal Exam
A structured assessment of a patient’s behavioral and cognitive functioning.
MENTAL STATUS EXAMINATION
MENTAL STATUS EXAMINATION
○ Level of consciousness (name, age, place of living)
○ Observe for appearance, behavior
○ Stream of talk/language
○ Mood, affect, emotional status
○ Illusions/hallucinations
○ Orientation (Time, Place, Date)
○ Test for attention
○ Recent and remote memory
○ Insight, judgment, abstract thinking
■ Insight: ask why patient sought consult with you
■ Judgment: ask a situational scenario
■ Abstract thinking: ask to interpret a proverb
○ Calculation
■ Serial 7’s
Levels of consiousness
Awake
Drowsy
Lethargic
Obtunded
Stupor
Comatose
● Very common
● Easy to identify
● Appearance of wakefulness
● Aware of the self and the surroundings
● Test if the patient is fully awake:
○ Ask name, age, place of living and if the patient answers the questions correctly
Awake
● Arousable to mild stimuli, such as tapping or name calling
● Falls back to sleep with no stimulus
● Test:
○ pat/tap
○ Ask name, age, place
○ Usually px responds appropriately but falls back
to sleep again
Drowsy
● Used interchangeable with obtunded, since patients are both arousable to moderate to vigorous stimuli
● Falls back to sleep with no stimulus
● Test:
○ Pat/tap
○ Do pain stimulation
○ Ask name, age, place
Lethargic
Also Obtunded
Difference are the effects, Obtunded can’t be fully aroused and more depressed lvl of consciousness
● Arousable to continuous stimuli
● Falls back to sleep immediately if the stimulus is
absent already
● Test:
○ Apply painful stimulus continuously
Stupor
● Unarousable to any type of stimuli
● Test:
○ Apply painful stimuli continuously – you would not elicit any change in sensoria
Comatose
Quick Mental Status Examination (MSE)
● Consciousness
● Regard?
○ Respond to stimulation
● Able to follow commands?
● Oriented?
○ Time
○ Place ○ Person
Example of reporting
Awake, with regard, able to follow commands, oriented to 3 spheres (place, person, time)
○ Motor initiation
○ Goal-directed behavior
○ Motivation
○ If damaged, it will lead to apathy, indifference, and loss of initiative
Ventromedial prefrontal cortex
○ Judgment
○ Inhibition of socially inappropriate words
○ If this part is damaged, it will lead to social
disinhibition; or hypersexual
Orbitofrontal prefrontal cortex
○ Planning of motor activity
○ Behavior
○ Executive functioning
○ Judgment
○ Problem solving
○ If damaged, it will result to impaired judgment with impaired planning and problem solving ability, also anhedonia, which is the lack of will to do activities
Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
Sample Case:
● 64 year old patient
● Recurrent headaches
● Higher cortical problems
○ Always forgetful
○ Acts like a child, always cries and shouts at daughter when not given what she wants
○ Cannot make her own decisions
What specific areas of the brain could have the problem?
Answer: FRONTAL LOBE
■ Control over emotions located on this lobe
○ Modulation of body arousal
○ Memory, spatial
○ Memory, Retrieval long term
○ Movement, self initiated
○ Mediated emotional response to pain
○ Making Decisions
Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex (6 M’s)
○ sOcial behavior
○ Reward Expectations
○ Response inhibition
○ Behavioral self-regulation
○ Impulse control
○ Taste, aversive/pleasurable
Orbitofrontal Prefrontal Cortex (ORRBIT)
○ Demands attention
○ Orientation
○ Response Conflict
○ Spatial and conceptual reasoning
○ Organization
○ Language, learning and memory
○ Attention
○ Temporal ordering of events
Dorsolateral prefrontal Cortex (DORSOLAT)
4 basic parts of testing higher cortical functions:
1. Test for Aphasia
a. Receptive (Wernicke)
b. Expressive (Broca)
2. Gerstmann Syndrome
a. Finger agnosia
b. R-L Confusion
c. Dysgraphia
d. Dyscalculia
3. Apraxia
4. Higher Sensory
a. Astereognosia, Agraphestesia, Sensory inattention
● How to test
○ Name objects
○ Repeat whatever you say
○ Comprehend
○ Fluent
● Two general types:
○ Broca’s Aphasia
○ Werncke’s Aphasia
Aphasia
■ Semantic paraphasia
■ Cannot repeat
■ Fluent – can speak but with disorganized words
and sentences
■ Cannot comprehend
Werncke’s Aphasia
■ Unable to name
■ Cannot repeat
■ Non-fluent – Speech problem
■ Can comprehend
Broca’s Aphasia
Difficulty in producing voice sounds (phonating)
Dysphonia
■ Difficulty in articulating the individual sounds or the units (phonemes) of speech
■ f’s r’s g’s
■ Vowels, consonants, labials (CrN VII), gutturals
(CrN X) and linguals (CrN XII)
Dysarthria
Difficulty with the melody and rhythm of speech, the accent of syllables, the infections, intonations, and pitch of the voice
Dysprosody
Difficulty in expressing or understanding words as the symbols of communication
Dysphasia
Types of aphasia:
Fluent?
NO: global, mixed, broca, transcortical motor (GMBT)
YES: wernicke, transcortical sensory, conduction, anomic (WACT)
Comprehends?
NO: global, wernicke
YES: transcortical motor, anomic
Repeats?
NO: g, b, w, c
YES: the rest
VA, VF, fundoscopy
CN 3
Pupillary, direct/consensual
2 & 3
EOMS, convergence
3, 4, 6