Mental Status Examination(MSE)

Mental Status Examination(MSE)

In psychiatric practice, a mental state evaluation is a crucial step in the clinical assessment process. It is a methodical approach of observing and describing a patient's current mental state, encompassing the areas of speech, thinking process, perception, cognition, insight, and judgment.

Its primary goals are to assess various mental processes and behaviors at a certain time both qualitatively and statistically. It assists in performing crucial tasks including diagnosis and evaluation of the course and treatment response of the condition.

A mental status examination's components

General Appearance

• Face expressions: unhappy, pleased,
• Stiff, relax your posture
• Dress seasonally and for the occasion appropriately.
• Cleanliness upheld or not
• Activity level: underactive/overactive
• Attitude: cooperative, attentive, and interested toward the examiner

Talk/ Speech

• Audible intensity, excessive volume.
• Spontaneity
• Analysis of reaction time.
• Tone: monotone speech.
• High/low volume
• Is speech comprehensible? Whether it's pertinent or not.

Mood/Affect

• Mood is a person's persistent internal emotional tone.
• The internal emotional tone is what effects are.
• Subjective (what patient says) (what patient says)
• Objective (what examiner observe) (what examiner observe)

Thoughts

• Form of Thought
  • Circumstances, such as providing an explanation that is overly detailed before finally getting to the point
  • Uncomprehensible and incoherent
  • Word salad is the blending of unrelated words.
  • Neologism: the creation of novel words
• Flow of Thoughts
  • Flights of ideas
  • Mutism
  • Thought block
• Content of Thoughts
  • Suicidal, suspicious, and depressive thoughts
    • Perception
      • Hallucination
      • Illusion

Orientation

•  The ability to navigate between time, space, and people
  • Time, the time of day, the date, the week, the month, and the year
  • A house, a hospital, a town, or a village
  • Individual, guests, a nurse, and others

Attention and Concentration

• (For example, what day is it today? If they indicate Thursday, then they should go both backward and forward. Whether or not he or she is preoccupied?)

Memory

• Use digits forward and backward immediately, then ask for a recall within 10 to 15 minutes.
• Recent: Inquire about things that happened within the last 24 to 72 hours, such as what they ate for lunch and dinner. To bring his memory back
• Remote-wedding and childbirth
  • Judgement
  • Intelligence
    • Ask general knowledge questions to gauge intelligence
    • Straightforward math calculation
  • Insight
    • Patient education about illness, such as asking, "Are you sick?" Kindly respond, "No, I'm not." If the response is negative, insight is lacking.

level of Consciousness

• Alert
• Lethargy
• Semi-comatose
• Comatose

Abstract Thinking

• Ask the patient how 2 items are alike.

For example:

• A tree with a housefly ( good response is alive, poor response is nothing)