MENTAL STATUS EXAMINATION, BNKN601 MAJOR
COLLATED EXAM QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS WITH
COMPLETE SOLUTIONS GRADED A++ LATEST UPDATE
What is a Mental Status Examination?
an evaluation of your pt's current state of cognitive and emotional functionality.
What are the Purpose of MSE?
- provides an overview of the individuals functioning
- monitor changes over time
- Helps w/ diagnosis
- Helps w/ treatment
- Support multidisciplinary team
What are the components of the MSE?
■ Appearance
■ Behavior
■ Speech
■ Mood/Affect
■ Thought Process ■ Thought Content ■ Perceptual Disturbances
■ Cognition
■ Insight
■ Judgment/Impulse Control
,What should we be looking for in Appearance ?
- Gender
- Sex
- Top-down analysis of appearance from head to toe
- anything odd?
What should we be looking for in Behavior & psychomotor activity ?
- Attitude of Pt
(cooperative, seductive, flattering, charming, eager to please, entitled, controlling,
uncooperative, hostile, guarded, critical, antagonistic, childish)
- Eye contact
- activity level
- tics
- tremors
What should we be looking for in Speech ?
- Rate (pressured/slowed/ regular)
- articulation (dysarthria/ stuttering)
- accent/dialect
- volume (loudness or softness)
- Tone
What should we be looking for in Mood?
- Mood is the emotion that the patient tells you he feels, often in quotations.
What should we be looking for in Affect ?
,an assessment of how the patient's mood appears to the examiner
- type of affect: Euthymic, euphoric, neutral, dysphoric
- how quick pt change states: sluggish—supple—labile.
- Quality : Flat, blunted, contricted, full, intense
- is the affect and mood congruent or not ?
What should we be looking for in Thought Process ?
The patient’s form of thinking—how he or she uses language and puts ideas together.
- Logical, coherent
- Circumstantiality
- Tangentiality
- Loosening of associations
- Flight of ideas
- Neologisms
- Word salad: Incoherent collection of words
- Clang associations
- Thought blocking
- Echolalia
What should we be looking for in Thought Content ?
- Poverty of Thought / Overabundance
- Delusions
- Suicidal Ideation
- Homocidal ideation
- Phobias
, - Obsessions
- Compulsions
What should we be looking for in Perceptions?
- Hallucinations : ask all 5 senses
- Illusions
What should we be looking for in Cognition ?
- Orientation: To person, place, and time
- Memory : STM & LTM
- Attention/
Concentration: Ability to subtract serial 7s from 100 or to spell "world" backwards
- Abstract reasoning
What should we be looking for in Insight ?
- Patient's capacity to Acknowledge/Appreciate illness, Associated, implications
Consequences
What should we be looking for in Judgement ?
The patient's capacity to make appropriate decisions and appropriately act on them in
social situations.
What is avolition?
lack of motivation
what is affective flattening
little expressed emotion
what can depression onset from
COLLATED EXAM QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS WITH
COMPLETE SOLUTIONS GRADED A++ LATEST UPDATE
What is a Mental Status Examination?
an evaluation of your pt's current state of cognitive and emotional functionality.
What are the Purpose of MSE?
- provides an overview of the individuals functioning
- monitor changes over time
- Helps w/ diagnosis
- Helps w/ treatment
- Support multidisciplinary team
What are the components of the MSE?
■ Appearance
■ Behavior
■ Speech
■ Mood/Affect
■ Thought Process ■ Thought Content ■ Perceptual Disturbances
■ Cognition
■ Insight
■ Judgment/Impulse Control
,What should we be looking for in Appearance ?
- Gender
- Sex
- Top-down analysis of appearance from head to toe
- anything odd?
What should we be looking for in Behavior & psychomotor activity ?
- Attitude of Pt
(cooperative, seductive, flattering, charming, eager to please, entitled, controlling,
uncooperative, hostile, guarded, critical, antagonistic, childish)
- Eye contact
- activity level
- tics
- tremors
What should we be looking for in Speech ?
- Rate (pressured/slowed/ regular)
- articulation (dysarthria/ stuttering)
- accent/dialect
- volume (loudness or softness)
- Tone
What should we be looking for in Mood?
- Mood is the emotion that the patient tells you he feels, often in quotations.
What should we be looking for in Affect ?
,an assessment of how the patient's mood appears to the examiner
- type of affect: Euthymic, euphoric, neutral, dysphoric
- how quick pt change states: sluggish—supple—labile.
- Quality : Flat, blunted, contricted, full, intense
- is the affect and mood congruent or not ?
What should we be looking for in Thought Process ?
The patient’s form of thinking—how he or she uses language and puts ideas together.
- Logical, coherent
- Circumstantiality
- Tangentiality
- Loosening of associations
- Flight of ideas
- Neologisms
- Word salad: Incoherent collection of words
- Clang associations
- Thought blocking
- Echolalia
What should we be looking for in Thought Content ?
- Poverty of Thought / Overabundance
- Delusions
- Suicidal Ideation
- Homocidal ideation
- Phobias
, - Obsessions
- Compulsions
What should we be looking for in Perceptions?
- Hallucinations : ask all 5 senses
- Illusions
What should we be looking for in Cognition ?
- Orientation: To person, place, and time
- Memory : STM & LTM
- Attention/
Concentration: Ability to subtract serial 7s from 100 or to spell "world" backwards
- Abstract reasoning
What should we be looking for in Insight ?
- Patient's capacity to Acknowledge/Appreciate illness, Associated, implications
Consequences
What should we be looking for in Judgement ?
The patient's capacity to make appropriate decisions and appropriately act on them in
social situations.
What is avolition?
lack of motivation
what is affective flattening
little expressed emotion
what can depression onset from
