The mental state examination

The mental state examination

The mental state examination is the assessment of the patient’s cognitive level, emotional mood, appearance, as well as speech plus the evaluation of his thinking pattern at any moment. After a clear illustration of what MSE is, we can say that its main objectives are.

Main objectives

evaluating the presence as well as the degree of mental impairment of a person is one of the main goals. Hence what is measured in the sense of an individual during a given time and at a given locality. The individual’s identity, which is the speech, mathematical ability, insight reasoning, as well as memory, is measured. The elderly are the most vulnerable individuals who should be issued entirely with MSE. It should be released repeatedly to monitor as well as document the change in the condition of the patients. It is also essential since it helps differentiate mood disorder, cognitive impairment, as well as ensuring that professional mental health practitioners do proper diagnostic testing. The MSE is commonly used by health practitioners to identify the mental disorders experienced by different patient’s in the hospitals.

Identify, describe and discuss the ten key components of standard MSE

1.Level of Consciousness

It mainly refers to the state at which a patient is wakeful, whereby it majorly depends on brainstem as well as cortical components. The levels are operationally illustrated by the stimuli strength required to elicit responses. There are different levels of consciousness, normal and clouded. At the normal level, the patient can respond to the stimuli when the strength level is lower since he or she is doing well without neurologic abnormality. But when it comes to clouded, it’s when the state of awareness is reduced, leading to inattention. At this point, the stimuli might be perceived at the conscious level, but in the real sense, they are ignored easily. Another level is the ‘delirium,’ it’s an acute start of a grossly abnormal mental state that exhibits changing consciousness, heightened irritability, disorientation as well as hallucinations. An instance of this component is that it can be identified when a patient with a reduced conscious level is being examined with this type of stimulus required to arouse the patients as well as the degree of the response being noticed.

2.Appearance as well as general behavior

With these variables, the examiner has the general impression of his or her patient. The physical appearance of the patients, dress, eye contact, grooming, as well as the posture of the patients, are pertinent observations. Some specific syndromes, like the disinhibited deeds of the lobe syndrome at the front, as well as the unilateral spatial neglect, are gladly appreciated by observing the behavior.

3.Speech plus Motor activity

To acquire important information, the health practitioner has to listen to the speech of the patient spontaneously when the patient is answering the questions which are open-ended attentively. With this, some problems might be realized, i.e., hypophonia disease of Parkinson, speech halting, and finally rapid as well as manic, which is a pressured speech. The general activities of the motor should always be noted. They include unusual mannerisms, slowness of movement that is due to depression or subcortical dementia, and finally, motor restlessness, which is due to portent extrapyramidal syndrome.

4. Affect as well as mood

The immediate emotional expression is known as Affect, whereas mood is when there are more sustainable makeups of the patient’s emotions. The patients will always show a variety of Affect describing the broader view. When there is no consonance amongst the patient’s experiences, then affect is unsuitable. The two components affect plus mood can be termed as dysphoric or euphoric. Therefore, affect should be judged in the setting as well as the observational context. An instance is a wide-opened eyes patient plus perspiration edging out through the forehead is recognized quickly as an individual suffering the Parkinson’s illness. Hence when emotional scarcity, as well as the weakened eye blink, are noticed, then the sweat of beads becomes seborrhea.

5. Thought plus perception

The inability to instill capture information perfectly can also be termed as psychotic thinking. The way a patient perceives as well as a retort to stimuli can also be identified as a psychiatric assessment. With patients, they may exhibit some tendencies to somatization. Hence the ill individuals may display delusional thinking, illusion, or hallucination. All this is because of the concealed experiences of the patient.

6. Attitude plus insight

Attitudes of patients are displayed by the emotional tone of the examiner, individuals as well as the patient’s illness. Hence this conveys a hostility sense, helplessness, anger, passivity, and pessimism. Similarly, the attitude of a patient concerning the illness is a crucial variable. With this, the health worker can bring forward several questions such as, whether the patient is a rejecting complainer, what’s the view of the patient on the illness, whether it is psychiatric or even nonpsychiatric as well as whether the patient is ready for improvement or he or she just want to suffer silently. Therefore, for these reasons, we find that the attitude of a patient will always change based on the interview.

7. Examiner’s response to the patient

Examiners of these patients are the most crucial individuals since they are the ones who spend the most time with these patients. Therefore, with this crucial data, the examiners obtain from the patients helps the examiners to overlook how the patient is responding to the illnesses easily. This will enable them to monitor the response of the patient. With a depressed patient, the first clue by the examiner is the dysphoria sense, which is developing.

8. Cognitive abilities of the structured examination

The gestalt view and the illness of the patients are due to the sections of the former state of the examination of the mental status. With the examination that is structured, the cognitive abilities that are specific due to the much reductionistic model of the patient. Hence the examiners pay attention to the correlates neuroanatomic.

9. Attention

Attention testing is more polished, considering the state of restlessness compared to consciousness level. With this, an appropriate attentiveness test should evaluate the concentration of a simple task, minimizing the language function demands as well as motor response. With patients who their attentiveness is diminished, their reaction moments are slowed frequently.

10. Language

The valuation of spontaneous talking is done as the patient provisions towards answers to open-ended inquiries. In evaluating this issue, an individual has to check on the articulation of disorders, outputs disorders as well as paraphysics errors. Pronunciational mistakes are known as phonemic errors, and errors in the meanings are known as semantic errors. With the language, the examiners have been able to test the different forms of language such as repetition, comprehension, writing as well as reading.

Describe a mental state assessment- from your practice if possible

MSE is basically how the current state of a patient’s mind is observed as well as described, so understand his attitude, mood, insight, thinking capacity, behavior, affect, perception, speech, plus cognition. Generally, all these are the components of MSE. With a clear understanding of how individuals with mental illness behave, one can identify anyone or patients that are affected by the disorders. Hence understanding also how to handle the mental disorders situations. How to manage the individuals is a very crucial part since they are very delicate in that any wrong move might make the try or take away their lives. Therefore, we should clearly understand how these individuals normally behave.

Part 2

Identify and discuss the critical components of a standard numerical suicide risk assessment

Suicide risk assessment is a multilayered process for studying an individual to understand him as well as address his or her wants about a person, recognizing and addressing his or her needs and finally working with them, knowing what they are useful in, and supporting them. Therefore, after understanding the SRA concept, we can say that many suicides attempted patients are the ones who are mentally ill. They mainly carry out the suicides through overdoses, which is self-harm. Mentally ill patients in various parts of the globe have had an attempt to kill themselves. Therefore, the psychiatrists have been able to develop trust by establishing a rapport with the patients so that these patients can speak openly with them. Hence the main components of suicide assessment that will assist a psychiatrist in building a rapport with the patient include.

1. Self-harm current historic episode

In this step the health practitioner has to identify what stimulated the attempt, was arranged and what technique did they use, did the patient live behind a suicide note, at the period of struggle was the patient sober or intoxicated, was he alone, how did he manage to kill himself without being discovered and did he ask for help after the attempt and finally what’s the current feeling of the patient on the situation( some wish they succeeded).

2. Assess the suicide risk factor

When analyzing this factor, the health worker has to identify if the patient in suicide attempt was either a male or female, their age(was it more than 45), did they lack jobs, their marital status, as they were physically ill, were they using substances in the past, previously have they attempted to take away there lives and finally do the patients family have a history of depression, misuse of materials or suicide attempts.

3. Evaluate the mood of the patient.

By doing this, the health practitioner will be able to know if the patients are angry or depressed.

4. Evaluate if the patient will still go back to the current situation when he has returned home.

With this, you will be able to give proper advice on how the families of this patient will be able to carry out the situation in case the patient becomes mentally ill again. They will be educated on how they can handle the situation and told some of the drugs that can control the situation before being admitted to the hospital.

5. Ask the patient what his thoughts about the future are?

When they are asked these questions, the psychiatrist will be able to know there thinking capacity.

6. The psychiatrists should question them how they feel about the suicide attempt they were initiating.

After understanding why the patient wanted to commit suicide, the reasons behind it, and also his thought on the suicide attempt. The psychiatrist will accumulate all the findings and come up with several recommendations that will assist the patient. An instance of the proposal is that the health practitioner can suggest for the patient to be hospitalized and also outpatient checks.

Discuss how a mental health clinician, using this information, determines low medium or high risk and provide examples for practice for each. If you do not have examples from your training, devise your scenarios

The clinicians understand vividly what MSE is and everything that it entails. Being that they handle different cases of mental disorders and come up with solutions or even recommendations to assist these individuals or patients. They will always approach each situation and treat it as required. In the hospitals, they are brought patients with worse, medium, or even low cases of mental health issues.

For this reason, they will have to use the skills as well as the experiences they have gained during the period, and they have been working to handle the situation at hand. When a patient is brought to them, the clinicians use both suicides as well as mental assessment. Component to assess the situation in which the patients are in.

An instance is that the clinicians will ask them several questions to determine his or her mental state. Issues such as what’s the patient’s name, his he male or female, evaluate his or her mood as well as attitude. This will enable health practitioners to examine whether the issue is severe or not severe, whether the risk is low or high.

Search the literature and provide a brief discussion of the advantages as well as disadvantages of using a numerically related suicide risk assessment versus an interview formatted suicide risk assessment

Health practitioners or clinicians have to detect as well as manage patients risking to commit suicide. For this reason, the proper understanding of the aspects that have an impact on the efficacy of the risk is of much importance. The timing of the evaluation, as well as interviewing of the ill patients, is vital since it enables the clinicians to identify whether a patient is developing symptoms to commit suicide. With the interview, the clinicians will be able to locate this instance since, in case the patient is lying, the health worker will be able to identify through the patient’s reactions. When the clinical officers conduct a proper assessment of these issues, the patients will fill free to speak with them and give out crucial information that can help the clinician to issue an appropriate diagnosis.

When the clinical officers do not assess the mental state of the patients accurately, they will not give a proper diagnosis to these mentally disordered patients; hence they can get involved in suicide. Therefore, the clinicians should adequately evaluate the risks to give out adequate and appropriate recommendations that will be of much importance in solving the issue. Every step they take about the incidence is very crucial to the patient. Any mistake can lead to suicide or other instances.

Conclusion

In summarizing every issue that has been discussed above, the medical practitioners are the critical stakeholders since they are the ones who are examining the mental states. Some of the essential facts addressed in this task were the components that the clinicians should be having when dealing with these cases of mental disorder. The ingredients are the guiding tools for the practitioners when solving the several risks that can occur when handling these issues. The patients being at a state of doing anything that can affect them negatively; they do not care since none of them recognizes what they are doing or engaging in. The clinicians must adequately evaluate the situation of patients and give out solutions that will be of much importance to the patient. The recommendations issued by the medical practitioners should be followed one by one by the patients. Since these patients are mentally ill, their family members should ensure that they follow every instruction issued to them by the medical practitioners. Therefore, globally governments of every state have been of much help to individuals experiencing mental illnesses since they have provided facilities that have been used to treat the problem. Enough training has been given to the clinicians by the government to be able to manage and reduce the instances of mental illnesses.