Mental Status Assessment

A mental status examination is a structured assessment of a patient’s behavioral and cognitive functions to determine if any problems are progressing or dissipating. There are many different things you can assess in a mental status examination. Some I feel may be more important than others would include: orientation, attention span, memory, appearance and judgement. I would assess my patient’s orientation by asking them simple questions like “what is your full name?”, “what is the date and time?”, where do you live?” and many more questions along the lines of these. I would assess attention span by observing if the patient gets distracted or off topic. You could also keep track of their speech and ability to complete their thoughts at the moment. I would observe my patient’s appearance by their hygiene and if it is clear they are maintaining it or not. …show more content…
You could assess your patient’s judgement by problem solving in a certain situation. You could ask them a question like “if you found fifty dollars on the ground at the mall, what would you do?” this is a simple question that would test the patient’s judgement in the moment. Lastly, I would assess my patient’s memory. This can be done in many ways, some would include a test and recall method. You could assess your patient’s ability to remember a list of words or pictures in a thirty-second period, and asked to recall as many as they can. This will test their short-term memory. You can test your patient’s long-term memory by asking them about their childhood or past events that have happened years ago. These are all the ways I would gather information about my patient in a mental status