How to Assess the Mental Health of Patients:

Is there an easy way to assess the mental status of patients? No, at times this can be quite complex, as well as problematic.

How to assess the mental status of patients is something that all health care professionals and non-professionals wrestle with as they attempt to diagnose, treat or administer nursing care to patients. At times, an accurate, mental status assessment can be instrumental in saving a patient’s life, particularly when it leads to immediate, emergency measures and appropriate health care.

Medicine.net discusses a wide range of symptoms evident in a patient with an altered mental status.

“An alteration in mental status refers to general changes in brain function.”

Note that the symptoms can vary from patient to patient, but many of them are similar and thus, detected almost immediately.

“While an altered mental status is obviously characteristic of a number of psychiatric and emotional conditions, medical conditions and injuries that cause damage to the brain can also cause mental status changes.”

Note that mental status changes may be minor in nature and often go undetected for a long time, while others mental status changes are major and become evident immediately to an astute medical or health care observer. 

Some of the symptoms of altered mental status include the following: confusion, amnesia (memory loss), loss of alertness, loss of orientation (not cognizant of self, time or place), defects in judgments or thought, poor regulation of emotions or disruptions in perception, psycho-motor skills and behavior.

It is not always be easy to assess a patient’s mental status, particularly when no one is familiar with, recognizes or has had previous contact with a particular patient.

A problem with a patient’s self-identification often alerts health care professionals and non-professionals to the fact that there is a concern with respect to his or her mental status. In other words, the patient does not know who he or she is, at that particular moment in time.  

What appears to be the mentally healthy status of a patient can change very suddenly and unexpectedly, when a patient is or becomes confused. This may initially become evident in terms of the patient being upset, feeling lost or actually getting lost with respect to where he or she is at that particular moment.

A blank, frightened expression on a patient’s face often suggests the loss of self-orientation or orientation with respect to time or place. He or she may show evidence of short or long-term memory loss, as well. The gradually declining or sudden decline of a patient’s mental status towards a comatose state indicates serious medical problems.

Patients who suddenly become paranoid, fearful, argumentative or abusive may be experiencing a change in their mental status. Note that these changes may be health related, drug induced or the result of intoxication with alcohol or substance abuse.

It is always important for medical professionals and non-professionals to document the initial mental status of a patient, as well as changes in the patient’s mental status. This information is vital for comparative purposes and helps to lead toward a more accurate diagnosis and the treatment of potential medical problems of a more serious nature. 

Because there is a multiplicity of different causes for changes in the mental status of patients, it is also important for health care professionals and non-professionals to be able to assess the mental status of their patients quickly, as well as accurately, and to obtain the medical care and treatment they need for them, as soon as possible.