ASSIGNMENT:
The purpose of this assignment is to evaluate the patient and write up a mental status exam on what you observe in the video that you.
Your initial post should include a detailed mental status exam write-up of that patient. The intent of this exercise is to help you to develop your skills in the assessment of a patient’s mental status and documentation of the mental status exam.
Please watch the following video clips and write up a mental status of the patients:
POST # 1 AMINATU
A mental state exam is essential as it describes a patient’s state of mind. The exam is essential when obtaining objective data from patients (Rocha et al., 2019). It constitutes a valuable tool as it helps physicians differentiate and identify some conditions and disorders affecting their patients. Today, most countries use the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) when differentiating organic from other functional psychiatric patients. Such a method tends to be affected by demographic factors (for instance, education and age) and cannot be administered in other languages due to standardization. However, Shim et al. (2017) identify that the method is extensively used in the clinical setting to measure cognitive impairment and when screening for dementia.
During a mental state exam, it is necessary to consider the patient’s language and culture. The patient needs to understand the questions and have the ability to answer. Clinicians must also have the ability to understand and interpret the response provided by the patients. It is essential to understand that mental state exams are usually face-to-face interviews. In this case, such interviews form a starting point for prognostic, diagnostic, and treatment offered to the patient (Hofmann, 2018). Mental state exams are effective, especially when determining a patient’s condition and the type of care to offer. The text provides a detailed mental status examination done on C- Mary, who experienced a manic episode.
Mental Status Exam
Appearance: The patient is alert and confident when answering questions. She is well dressed, and she is chewing gum and blowing bubbles. Her face has no makeup or jewelry. The patient is also jovial and in a good mood to answer questions asked.
Orientation: The patient is familiar with the surroundings, identifies that she is in a hospital, and recognizes her doctor.
Behavior: She is optimistic about the day as she describes her feeling as “on top of the world.” She maintains eye contact with her doctor and pays attention to the questions asked. She also takes time to understand the questions. Some questions make her laugh as a way of hiding some feelings like her mother’s death.
Speech: She talks fast and clearly and appears to have all the answers to the questions asked.
Affect: She shows some signs of overreactions as there is some emotional display when talking about her mother’s death.
Mood: The patient is euphoric as there is an intense excitement in how she responds to some questions. She looks irritated when talking about her husband.
Thought Process: The content she provides is not easy to follow as her answers are not organized. She appears to have a loose thought process.
Thought Content: She does not have symptoms of self-harm or suicidal ideation. However, there is some aspect of violence, especially when talking about the husband. She describes beating up her husband and claims he “pissed her off.”
Perception: The patient has delusions, especially when saying the things, she can do. She believes she can “bring up the wind” and God gives her that power. She also claims that coffer makes her drunk which is evidence of delusions.
Memory/Concentration: She remembers things that happened in her past, like her mother’s death. However, her concentration is not stable. During the interview, she questioned if she was still focused, meaning she was not much focused.
Insight/Judgment: She has poor insight as she understands there is a problem with her, and it is evident when she agrees she has “up periods.” She describes not sleeping because of these periods, which shows she is aware of her problem. She has poor judgment since the things she does gets her into trouble.
References
Hofmann, S. (2018). Clinical psychology: A global perspective. Wiley-Blackwell.
Rocha Neto, H., Estellita-Lins, C., Lessa, J., & Cavalcanti, M. (2019). Mental state examination and its procedures—Narrative Review of Brazilian Descriptive Psychopathology. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00077
Shim, Y., Yang, D., Kim, H., Park, Y., & Kim, S. (2017). Characteristic differences in the mini-mental state examination used in Asian countries. BMC Neurology, 17(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12883-017-0925-z