Which cognitive function is the nurse assessing when asking the patient to describe childhood

Topic Resources

The patient’s attention span is assessed first; an inattentive patient cannot cooperate fully and hinders testing. Any hint of cognitive decline requires examination of mental status ( see Examination of Mental Status Examination of Mental Status

• Orientation to time, place, and person

• Attention and concentration

• Memory

• Verbal and mathematical abilities

• Judgment

• Reasoning

Loss of orientation to person (ie, not knowing one’s own name) occurs only when obtundation, delirium Delirium Delirium is an acute, transient, usually reversible, fluctuating disturbance in attention, cognition, and consciousness level. Causes include almost any disorder or drug. Diagnosis is clinical... read more , or dementia Dementia Dementia is chronic, global, usually irreversible deterioration of cognition. Diagnosis is clinical; laboratory and imaging tests are usually used to identify treatable causes. Treatment is... read more is severe; when it occurs as an isolated symptom, it suggests malingering.

The patient is asked to do the following:

• Follow a complex command that involves 3 body parts and discriminates between right and left (eg, “Put your right thumb in your left ear, and stick out your tongue”)

• Name simple objects and parts of those objects (eg, glasses and lens, belt and belt buckle)

• Name body parts and read, write, and repeat simple phrases (if deficits are noted, other tests of aphasia Diagnosis are needed)

Spatial perception can be assessed by asking the patient to imitate simple and complex finger constructions and to draw a clock, cube, house, or interlocking pentagons; the effort expended is often as informative as the final product. This test may identify impersistence, perseveration, micrographia, and hemispatial neglect.

Praxis (cognitive ability to do complex motor movements) can be assessed by asking the patient to use a toothbrush or comb, light a match, or snap the fingers.

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