Assessment of mental status of an individual involves the gathering of correct information about the mental status of a individual.
This is essential in the development of appropriate plan of care. It takes from of a description of all the areas of client’s mental functioning.
In doing this, a trained interviewer posses certain questions in a carefully standardized manner and evaluates the verbal responses and behaviour reactions of the clients to the questions.
Critical Component In The Assessment of Mental Status of An Individual
The following are the components that are considered critical in the assessment of an individual’s mental status;
1. General Description
a. appearance
This includes things like dressing and grooming, hygiene, level of eye contact, hair colour and texture. It is evaluated compared with the chronological age of the individual.
b. Motor Activity
this involves all forms of abnormal movement such as
- mannerism: involving repeated movement that seems to have some functional significance.
- Tic: involving irregular repeated movement e.g sideways movement of the head
- stereotypes: involving a repeated movement that is regular but without obvious significance
- negativism; involves doing the opposite of what is agreed on and actively resisting effort to persuade compliance
- echophrexia: involving the limitation of another man’s movement automatically
- ambitendence; involving the alteration between opposite movement e..g putting out the arm for handshake then withdrawing it, extending it again and so on.
- echolalia; involving immediate repetition of another words or phrases
- waxy flexibility; involving denoting a condition in which the patient will with resistance allow his limbs to be moved then maintained in whatever position they are placed, regardless of awkwardness or discomfort
c. Attitude
This includes cooperative or uncooperative attitude, friendly, hostile or defensive attitudes, attentive or interested attitude, guarded or suspicious attitude.
2. Emotions
this is expressed in mood or affect
a. mood
this includes feeling of sadness, depression, irritability, anxiety, elation, euphoria, fear, guilt
b. Affect
This includes such things as
- incongruity of affect where displayed emotions is in contrast to apparent situation, e.g laughing when explaining the death of a loved one
- Blunting of affect or flatening of affect; absence of reaction in emotion to evident stimulant
- emotional liability; rapid, excessive and erratic response in emotion without evidence self control
3. Thought Process
a. forms of thought
these includes flight of ideas in which the patient is distractible or has no guiding idea, thus wandering from subject to subject. They include;
- looseness of association(loss of normal structure of thinking)
- circumstantiality in which patient has a guiding idea but takes a long time to get to it
- neologism in which patient uses word or phrases invented by himself
- concrete thinking where patient’s thought process can onle be focused on a specific thing rather than generalities.
- Clang association in which patient’s spech is governed by sounds often taking the form of rhyming.
- word salad in which patient’s word are jumble together without any logical connection
- perseveration in which patient’s speech is characterized by persistent and inappropriate repetition of the same thought
- echolalia in which patient continuously repeat the words spoken by another like a parrot
- mutism in which a patient deliberately refuse to respond to communication and starring blanking
b. Streams of thought
this is noted in patient’s rapidity, slowness or hesitancy in speech. It includes;
- thought block in which the patient may be talking normally only to break off for no obvious reason in the midst of a sentence and starts up again in a different sentence
- slowness or rapidity of speech in the form of thought pressure where ideas arise in abundance and rapidly through the mind of the patient. It is also known as poverty of speech or retardation of thought where the patient finds it difficult to start making a speech or ding so carefully
c. Possession of Thoughts
this includes;
- thought removal in which the patient believes that his thoughts are literally being taken away from his mind by a supernatural force
- thought insertion in which the patient believes that thoughts are being generated into his mind by a supernatural force
- thought broadcast in which the patient believes that his thought are being heard from people around.
d. Contents of Thoughts
this is sum total of beliefs which are entertained by the patients. They come in form of
- Delusion which may be persecutory, grandiose, amorous, hypochondriacal, nihilistic
- Suicidal idea, paranoid, suspiciousness as well as phobia
4. Perceptual Disturbance
a. Hallucination
False perception within the realm of the senses – auditory, visual, gustatory, tactile, olfactory.
b. Illusions
mis-perception of real external stimulus such as a mirage in the desert or voices in the wind or the perception of an approaching individual
c. Depersonalization
altered perception of the self, in which a person feels unreal about self or owner experience
d. Derealization
altered perception of the environment or the experience of the external world, so that it seems strange or unreal.
5. Cognitive Ability
a. Consciousness
level of arousal from mild to extreme stimulation. It includes;
- clearness of consciousness where an individual is readily and easily aroused
- cloudiness of consciousness in which there is poor arousal in the form of stupor, sleep or coma
- confusion; loss of orientation
b. Memory
This include;
- Amnesia; total loss or partial loss of memory which cannot be associated with organic pathology
- Dejavu; in which a patient recognizes a situation or event that has been encountered before
- J’mais Vu; in which a patient fail to recognize a situation or event that has been encountered before
- Confabulation; Demonstration of a memory that is false with the aim of feeling the gap in between statement.
c. Intelligence
this involves testing the patients on his/her ability in counting, calculating and assessment of general knowledge
d. Judgement
This includes the ability of a patient to solve problems as demonstrated by the soundness of his/her behaviour
e. Insight
This the degree of awareness and understanding of a patient in relation to his or her health and illness status as well as the awareness of his limitation.
We hope this information was helpful. Feel free to ask your questions in the comment section below.