Anxiety - Mental Status Examination - Clinical Skills - Dr Gill

Anxiety - Mental Status Examination - Clinical Skills - Dr Gill

A crucial part of the mental status examination, is that like any examination, it requires consent. Without this consent, were you to attempt to perform a mental status examination, technically you'd be committing battery. In order to do this effectively, we need to highlights that we are looking at the patient's thought processes, that having a look at their mental state at that moment in time in the consultation room.

In order to perform a mental state examination, we are going to look at the patient's appearance, behaviour, speech, mood, effect, thought form, thought content, thought flow, perceptions, insight, safety, and cognition

One of the crucial parts about the mental status examination, is that it is an examination at that point in time, thus has the ability to change across time, very much in the same way that a patient may have capacity for consent at one point, but may lose capacity subsequently, but regain it following an intervention

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