Week 1 discussion board post NR601-Hjohnson
Part one
Comprehensive Geriatric
Assessment
Domain Dimensions of assessment Screening tool related to the domain(s)
Psychological
The domain of
psychological health for
...
Week 1 discussion board post NR601-Hjohnson
Part one
Comprehensive Geriatric
Assessment
Domain Dimensions of assessment Screening tool related to the domain(s)
Psychological
The domain of
psychological health for
elderly patients includes
screening for depression and
anxiety (Kennedy-Malone,
Plank, & Duffy, 2019).
However, another vital
screening for the elderly in
the domain of psychology
includes the cognitive and
spiritual as well. Screening
for cognitive deficiencies
includes assessing for mild
cognitive impairment or
dementia and delirium.
Cognitive impairment in the
elderly can be caused by
medications, infections and
oxygenation changes to
name a few (KennedyMalone et al., 2019).
Because of the many
underlying causes that can
be associated with a
decrease in cognition for the
elderly, it is vital to screen
the elderly when cognitive
impairment is suspected.
Currently there are several
cognitive screening tools available to
screen the elderly for cognitive
impairment (Arevalo-Rodriguez et al.,
2015). One important screening tool that
can be administered to an elderly patient
to determine cognitive status is the Minimental State Exam (MMSE). The MMSE
falls within the psychological domain as it
considered a neuropsychological
examination tool (Arevalo-Rodriguez et
al., 2015). The MMSE is useful in a
primary care setting due to the fact that it
takes no more than ten minutes to
administer and provides objective scoring
to determine cognitive function (ArevaloRodriguez et al., 2015). The MMSE uses
a series of tasks that the patient performs
that corresponds to a numerical score.
Based on their level of performance, and
their ability to perform these tasks, a
patient is given a totaled score. For
instance, the first question asked on the
MMSE involves the patient answering
what is the year, season, date, day and
month (Arevalo-Rodriguez et al., 2015).
Each answer is one point scored on the
exam
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