MENTAL HEALTH BASICS......


The Mental Status Examination (MSE) investigates eight areas of mental
function:

(1) appearance and behavior

Usually done by observation and may include body language, facial
expression and/or speech.

(2) attitude

Usually done by observation and may include attention span, mood and
affect.

(3) perception

(EXAMPLE: Do have voices talking to you or about you? Do you see things
or people that aren't there? Do you ever have unusual feelings in your
body, like you are being touched? Do you ever experience odd or unusual
smells or tastes?)

(4) orientation

(EXAMPLE: What day of the week is today? What is the name of this
building? What kind of a place is it? Who am I?)

(5) judgment

(EXAMPLE: If you were walking down the street and found a stamped,
addressed, sealed envelope, what should you do?
Suppose you were in a movie theater and smelled smoke and saw a fire,
what would you do?)

(6) cognition

(EXAMPLE: I am going to give you an address to remember and in three
minutes I'm going to ask you to repeat it to me. I'm going to give you
some numbers and I want you to repeat them back to me.)

(7) abstraction

(EXAMPLE: I'm going to give you the names of some things and I'm going
to ask you how they are alike. How are a table and chair alike? How
are a hammer and saw alike?)

(8) insight

Degree of patient's awareness and understanding of his problem including
blaming others and defensive structure.