The mental status examination may be short if there are no cognitive symptoms or abnormalities noted during the interview. The neurological mental status examination is basically a subset of the psychiatric version, focused on cognitive abnormalities seen more often with neurological disorders. A normal neurological mental status examination could be communicated with: “The patient is alert and oriented to person, place, time, and situation; with normal attention, language, and memory”. Even better is a description of the patient’s performance on each test, so that others can know how extensively the various domains of cognition were tested, since this will vary based on the situation.
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Introduction to Neurology 