ADVANCED ASSESSMENT INTERPRETING
FINDINGS AND FORMULATING
DIFFERENTIAL DIAGNOSES
CERTIFICATION TEST PAPER VERIFIED
QUESTIONS AND SOLUTIONS GRADED A+
●● disorder
Answer: one meets all the criteria in the DSM for a disorder
●● mental status exam
Answer: no more than 5 minutes since most of differential diagnosis will
be based on history. psychiatric exam part 2 brief exam. broken into 2
parts psychiatric and neurologic which includes the observation of the
clients appearance, motor function (tics, tourettes), cognitive
functioning, behavior, cooperation, speech and thought pattern (logical
or not), affect, mood, judgement and insight, perception,
suicidal/homicidal ideations, reliability of information provided,
oriented x3 (person, place, time), medical problems concrete or abstract .
organizes info
●● borderline
Answer: stable personality disorder, not going to experience psychosis.
experiences unstable attachments
,●● cultural vs. universal
Answer: not enough evidence to agree if psychiatric disorders or
symptoms are universal or a result of cultural or contextual factors
●● assessment
Answer: first step in in social work, core skill. broad, ongoing, evaluate
personal resources (family, strengths, cognitive functioning) evaluate
deficits. include health ego functioning and mental status. risk
assessment always ask depressed client about risk of suicidal or
homicide. biases impact how you assess client. part of a psychosocial
workup—an ecological approach.
●● diagnosis
Answer: never changes, focused, problem centered, pathology, impacts
treatment. focus on Symptoms of behavior
,individual behavior
,Focus on pathology
●● pathology
Answer: behave in an extreme and unacceptable way, and have very
powerful feelings that they cannot control.
●● conduct disorder
Answer: children kill animals, set fires, turn into criminals, no remorse
,●● mood vs. affect
Answer: mood= season affect=weather. mood continues over over time,
pervasive. internally felt emotions (depression anxiety, anger). affect
may change quickly, current emotional state. outward display of
emotions should be differentiated from mood. affect is normally
appropriate to situation
●● three types of affect (emotional states)
Answer: blunt-very little range monotone, flat- little range of emotion,
labile-rapidly changing
●● labile
Answer: affect- rapidly changing
●● blunt
Answer: very little range monotone- affect
●● flat
Answer: little range of emotion
●● diurnal variation
Answer: changes in mood in depression throughout the day. typically is
more severe in the morning and lessens
, ●● schizophrenia
Answer: variety of negative and positive symptoms (positive- delusion,
negative-)often have disorganized speech
●● positive formal thought disorder/disorganized speech
Answer: more then there should be, positive symptom
●● types of disorganized speech
Answer: tangetiality- responds but goes in a different direction,
circumstantiality-unnecessary details eventually makes a point, illogical
, derailment- loose associations, jumps from subject to subject, words
make sentences but sentences do not make sense, thought blocking-
sudden disruption of thought, break in flow of ideas common in
schizophrenia and dementia, clanging- using rhymes or sounds,
distractable- changes subject mid sentence, often because they hear
voices get distracted, pressure of speech- can't get the words out fast
enough, word salad/incoherance/ schizophasia- words thrown together
they make no sense
●● negative formal thought disorder
Answer: poverty of speech, negative symptom
●● poverty of content
Answer: fluent speech but no content, convey little info
FINDINGS AND FORMULATING
DIFFERENTIAL DIAGNOSES
CERTIFICATION TEST PAPER VERIFIED
QUESTIONS AND SOLUTIONS GRADED A+
●● disorder
Answer: one meets all the criteria in the DSM for a disorder
●● mental status exam
Answer: no more than 5 minutes since most of differential diagnosis will
be based on history. psychiatric exam part 2 brief exam. broken into 2
parts psychiatric and neurologic which includes the observation of the
clients appearance, motor function (tics, tourettes), cognitive
functioning, behavior, cooperation, speech and thought pattern (logical
or not), affect, mood, judgement and insight, perception,
suicidal/homicidal ideations, reliability of information provided,
oriented x3 (person, place, time), medical problems concrete or abstract .
organizes info
●● borderline
Answer: stable personality disorder, not going to experience psychosis.
experiences unstable attachments
,●● cultural vs. universal
Answer: not enough evidence to agree if psychiatric disorders or
symptoms are universal or a result of cultural or contextual factors
●● assessment
Answer: first step in in social work, core skill. broad, ongoing, evaluate
personal resources (family, strengths, cognitive functioning) evaluate
deficits. include health ego functioning and mental status. risk
assessment always ask depressed client about risk of suicidal or
homicide. biases impact how you assess client. part of a psychosocial
workup—an ecological approach.
●● diagnosis
Answer: never changes, focused, problem centered, pathology, impacts
treatment. focus on Symptoms of behavior
,individual behavior
,Focus on pathology
●● pathology
Answer: behave in an extreme and unacceptable way, and have very
powerful feelings that they cannot control.
●● conduct disorder
Answer: children kill animals, set fires, turn into criminals, no remorse
,●● mood vs. affect
Answer: mood= season affect=weather. mood continues over over time,
pervasive. internally felt emotions (depression anxiety, anger). affect
may change quickly, current emotional state. outward display of
emotions should be differentiated from mood. affect is normally
appropriate to situation
●● three types of affect (emotional states)
Answer: blunt-very little range monotone, flat- little range of emotion,
labile-rapidly changing
●● labile
Answer: affect- rapidly changing
●● blunt
Answer: very little range monotone- affect
●● flat
Answer: little range of emotion
●● diurnal variation
Answer: changes in mood in depression throughout the day. typically is
more severe in the morning and lessens
, ●● schizophrenia
Answer: variety of negative and positive symptoms (positive- delusion,
negative-)often have disorganized speech
●● positive formal thought disorder/disorganized speech
Answer: more then there should be, positive symptom
●● types of disorganized speech
Answer: tangetiality- responds but goes in a different direction,
circumstantiality-unnecessary details eventually makes a point, illogical
, derailment- loose associations, jumps from subject to subject, words
make sentences but sentences do not make sense, thought blocking-
sudden disruption of thought, break in flow of ideas common in
schizophrenia and dementia, clanging- using rhymes or sounds,
distractable- changes subject mid sentence, often because they hear
voices get distracted, pressure of speech- can't get the words out fast
enough, word salad/incoherance/ schizophasia- words thrown together
they make no sense
●● negative formal thought disorder
Answer: poverty of speech, negative symptom
●● poverty of content
Answer: fluent speech but no content, convey little info
