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Training on Psychosis and Mental Exam

Jun 3, 2025

Mental Status Examination Training: Psychosis

Overview

  • Final section of the mental status examination training.
  • Produced and narrated by Tom Field.
  • Focus: Understanding psychosis and its components, including delusions and hallucinations.
  • Training method: Scaffolding process, ending with a comprehensive test.

Guided Practice

  • Review of different aspects of mental status:
    • Affect and Mood
    • Thought Process
    • Memory
    • Motor Speech
    • Interpersonal and Intrapersonal issues
  • Use of guided practice video case studies.

Definition of Psychosis

  • Psychosis: Idiosyncratic beliefs and perceptual experiences outside realistic possibilities, including delusions and hallucinations.
  • Delusion: Fixed, odd beliefs outside realistic possibilities often associated with schizophrenia.
  • Hallucination: Sensory perceptions not experienced by others; associated with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, delirium, and substance abuse.

Types of Hallucinations

  • Hypnogogic: Occur when falling asleep.
  • Hypnopompic: Occur when waking up.
  • Five sensory types:
    • Auditory: Hearing voices.
    • Visual: Seeing images.
    • Olfactory: Smelling odors like burnt toast.
    • Gustatory: Tasting unusual flavors.
    • Tactile: Feeling sensations like spiders crawling on skin.

Types of Delusions

  • Bizarre Delusions: Odd beliefs like being half human, half donut.
  • Control Delusions: Belief of external control over one's thoughts or actions, e.g., aliens controlling thoughts.
  • Grandeur Delusions: Elevated sense of importance or power, e.g., belief of winning a Nobel Prize.
  • Infidelity Delusions: Belief that one's partner is unfaithful without evidence.
  • Persecution Delusions: Belief of being harassed, e.g., FBI monitoring.
  • Reference Delusions: Belief that unrelated events have personal significance, e.g., news messages.
  • Erotomanic Delusions: Belief that another is in love with the individual without reciprocation.

Assessing Psychosis

  • Importance of verbal disclosure in identifying hallucinations.
  • Genuine hallucinations are often frightening.
  • Pseudo-hallucinations linked to malingering and personality disorders.
  • Olfactory and gustatory hallucinations can signal strokes or tumors.

Appearance in Mental Status Examination

  • Two facets: Grooming and dress.
    • Grooming: Ranges from unkempt to immaculate.
    • Dress: Ranges from underdressed to overdressed.
  • Significance of appearance usually when unkempt or disheveled.

Video Case Studies

  • Case studies illustrating various delusions and hallucinations.
  • Assessment criteria for psychosis include affect, mood, thought process, memory, and appearance.

Conclusion

  • Understanding psychosis requires careful observation and direct questioning.
  • Comprehension of delusions and hallucinations is essential for mental status examination.
  • Final practice involves coding for various mental status examination components.