The ability to effectively assess cognitive and other behavioral functions is an essential skill for neurologists, psychiatrists, geriatricians, nurses, and other clinicians who perform clinic and bedside examinations. Unique in the field, The Mental Status Examination Handbook is a user-friendly, comprehensive resource that provides practical guidance on cognitive assessment, clarifies mental status testing procedures, and assists with decision making for neuropsychological referrals. This detailed manual draws from the full history of behavioral neurology testing, making the complex and challenging area of cognitive assessment accessible for both students and practitioners. - Offers guidance on how to choose and perform a large number of mental status tests, with information on selected test materials and normative values. - Covers the bedside evaluation of arousal, attention, memory, language, perception, executive abilities, and other cognitive and behavioral areas. - Provides an authoritative assessment and compendium of commonly used mental status scales, inventories and questionnaires. - Describes relevant correlations with formal neuropsychological testing, neuroimaging, and neuropsychiatric disease. - Explains how to weigh, use, and understand mental status scales and neuropsychological instruments. - Discusses the meaning of cognitive symptoms and signs, and their neuroanatomical and neuropathological correlations.

Contains case studies.

Revised and updated, this practical handbook is a succinct how-to guide to the psychiatric interview. In a conversational style with many clinical vignettes, Dr. Carlat outlines effective techniques for approaching threatening topics, improving patient recall, dealing with challenging patients, obtaining the psychiatric history, and interviewing for diagnosis and treatment. This edition features updated chapters on the major psychiatric disorders, new chapters on the malingering patient and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and new clinical vignettes. Easy-to-photocopy appendices include data forms, patient education handouts, and other frequently referenced information. Pocket cards that accompany the book provide a portable quick-reference to often needed facts.

Psychosocial and holistic approaches to assessment have become a central feature of modern mental health care. This practical and comprehensive book guides students through the theory and practice of psychosocial assessments to help them integrate the data as preparation for the effective planning of treatment and interventions. Key features: step-by-step guide on how to undertake each stage of the assessment process in practice clinical staff and service users voices describing their experiences of the process end of chapter exercises reflections and considerations for practice This is essential reading for pre-registration nursing students and mental health professionals.

A comprehensive, easy-to-read introductory text for nursing students. The book is organized into three sections: Introduction to Psychiatric-Mental Health Nursing, Mental Health Disorders, and Nursing Management of Special Populations. This unique text is the most comprehensive psychiatric mental health resource available.

Developed from years of teaching psychiatry to medical students and residents, this comprehensive text devoted solely to describing the mental status examination (MSE) fills a void in the teaching literature and will be valuable to both students first learning about the MSE and seasoned clinicians seeking an informative reference. The introductory chapter offers basic advice on interviewing patients and eliciting information. Six major sections of the MSE follow and are thoroughly described with a chapter devoted to each: Appearance, Attitude, Activity; Mood and Affect; Speech and Language; Thought Content, Thought Process, and Perception; Cognition; and Insight and Judgment. Each chapter lists a detailed definition of reference for students describing their findings, and are an insightful review even for experienced practitioners. The clinical relevance of mental status abnormalities is illustrated through frequent examples of disorders that can cause the particular signs and symptoms defined in each chapter. A final chapter describing fictional case histories with hypothetical examples of written mental status reports will be particularly useful for those learning to write such reports. This text is an important addition to the libraries of students and practitioners who work with psychiatric patients and should help to simplify and organize a challenging task.