MENTAL STATUS EXAMINATION

Description of all areas of mental functioning

1. Appearances- grooming, level of hygiene, Attire
2. Behaviour (includes attitude toward the interviewer)-Level of Cooperativeness,
Suspiciousness, Gait, Movements, Tremors, Ties, Mannerisms, Stereotype, Eye
Contact
3. Speech-Comprehension, rate. Spontaneity, Fluency, Clarity, Loudness, Speech
defects, Mutism, Aphasia, Echolalia
4. Mood and Affect
a. Depth, Length of time, Level of Fluctuation
b. Anxious, Panicky, sad, Fearful, Depressed, Angry, Guilty, Euphoric
c. Blunting, Apathy, Liability, Facial mobility, Incognito
5. Thought
a. Thought process-flight of ideas, retardation or slowing, circumstantiality, tangentially.
Blocking, loosening of associations, preservation, neologisms, echolalia
b. Thought content- Delusions (guilt, persecution, grandiosity, love, nihilism somatic).
Ideas of reference and ideas of influence, obsessions and compulsions,
preoccupations, phobias, suicidal and homicidal ideation.
6. Perception
a. Hallucinations-visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, depersonalization and de-realization
Auditory
Visual
Other (somatic, gustatory, tactile)
7. Cognition
a. Level of awareness
b. Level of alertness
c. Orientation
Person
Place
Time
d. Memory
Immediate
Short term
Long term
e. Attention (digit span)
f. Calculations
g. Fund of knowledge
Abstractions
Similarities
h. Proverbs
i. Insight
j. Judgment