ABSTRACT
We have reviewed the taking of a neuropsychiatric history by interviewing the patient, family members, or collateral informants in Chapter 3. This chapter will not be a complete review of the mental status or neurological examinations, as there are more extensive texts available to assist clinicians, as noted in the references below and in the body of this chapter. A discussion of mental status will follow standard psychiatric principles for the performance of a mental status examination (see Trzepacz and Baker 1993; Ovsiew 2013). Finer points of the mental status examination from a neurologist’s perspective can be found in Strub and Black (2000). Lezak et al. (2012) provide instruction on the neuropsychological mental status examination. The purpose of this chapter is to focus the clinician on salient feature of the mental status examination, appropriate for a person who sustained a traumatic brain injury (TBI), as well as salient features of the neurological examination within the same context. Both the adult and child examination of mental status and neurological function are included.
