NEUROLOGICAL ASSESSMENT ( MENTAL STATE )

Orientation

General appearance

Mood

Reason why they’re in the hospital

Thought and processes

Cognition

Judgement/Insight

Judgment: the ability to anticipate the consequences of one’s behavior and

Memory: immediate, short and long term

Refers to the themes that occupy the patients thoughts and perceptual disturbances

Build, posture, dress, grooming,

Person, place, time (month/year),

Describe how the patient is appearing –

prominent physical abnormalities

The prevalent emotional state the patient tells you they feel

Often placed in quotes since it is what the patient tells you

Examples “Fantastic, elated, depressed, anxious, sad, angry, irritable, good

Affect

The emotional state we observe

Range: full (normal) vs. restricted, blunted or flat, labile

Congruency: does it match the mood(mood congruent vs. mood incongruent)

Type: euthymic (normal mood), dysphoric (depressed, irritable, angry), euphoric (elevated, elated) anxious

Stability: stable vs. labile

Insight: awareness of one’s own illness and/or situation

make decisions to safeguard your well being and that of others

Level of consciousness

Attention and concentration: the ability to focus, sustain and appropriately shift mental attention

Abstraction: proverb interpretation

preoccupations, illusions, ideas of reference, hallucinations, derealization

depersonalization, delusions

Speech

Rate: increased/pressured, decreased/monosyllabic, latency

Rhythm: articulation, prosody, dysarthria, monotone, slurred

Volume: loud, soft, mute

Content: fluent, loquacious, paucity, impoverished