Conducting an Effective Mental Status Exam & Risk Assessment – Brooks W. Baer

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• Maximize the exam to ensure correct diagnosis
• Recognize indicators of violence
• Make decisions about appropriate treatment settings
• Strengthen your core diagnostic skills
• Write clear, comprehensive reports
• Discover a systematic strategy for risk assessment

Watch this recording and learn the essentials of a good mental status exam. Understand how it supports your diagnostic decisions and shapes your treatment plan and interventions. A well conducted mental status exam becomes the cornerstone of accurate diagnosis and effective treatment planning. This seminar is guaranteed to sharpen your interview and diagnostic skills. You will discover the rationale behind this, and learn to use it as an effective tool to help the patient tell their experience. As the patient reveals their inner experience you will uncover the symptoms of mental disorders.

In addition to the identification of mental illnesses, a well conducted mental status exam helps you identify individuals who represent danger to themselves and others. Learn what the signs are for potential violence and as well as the appropriate clinical response.

• Gain an understanding of the purpose of the mental status exam.
• Strengthen your core diagnostic skills.
• Summarize what each section of the mental status exam is intended toreveal to you.
• Enhance your ability to write a mental status exam in a professional manner.
• Recognize precursors to violent behavior.
• Recognize precursors to suicide.

Written Sections of a Psychiatric Evaluation

• Subjective
• Chief complaint
• History of present illness or symptoms
• Social or family history
• Review of systems

Appearance, Attitude, Activity & Movement

Mood

• Six clusters of terms to describe mood and affect

Affect

• Terms to describe parameters of affect

Thought Processes

• Positive and Negative symptoms
• Abnormalities of thought process
• Less common abnormalities
• Abnormalities of thought content and perception
  • Types of delusions
• Types of obsessions
  • Diagnostic significance of obsession and preoccupations
• Abstraction
• Concreteness

Speech and Language

• Fluency of speech
• Repetition
• Comprehension
• Naming
• Prosody
• Quality of speech

Perception

• Depersonalization
• Derealization
• Hallucinations: auditory, command, & visual
  • Tactile
  • Gustatory
  • Olfactory

Cognition

• Elements of intact cognition
• Attention and concentration
• Deficits in attention and focus
• Short-term memory
• Long-term memory
• Confabulation
• Semantic memory

Insight and Judgment

Defense Mechanisms

• Mature, neurotic, immature, & psychotic

RISK ASSESSMENT

Essential Elements of Danger to Self

• History
• Predictive value of previous attempts
• Stated intent
• Psychosocial risk factors
• Specific suicide inquiry

Essential Elements of Danger to Others

• History
  • Affective violence
  • Instrumental violence
• Stated intent
• Ego syntonic vs. ego dystonic
• Psychosis