Health Assessment Lecture 1: Health History, Mental Status, and Nutritional Assessment

Vocabulary flashcards covering adult health history, mental status assessment, and nutritional assessment from Lecture 1.

Subjective Data

A sensation a person feels from a disorder, recorded in quotation marks as the person's own words describing the reason for seeking care.

Objective Data

An abnormality that can be detected on physical examination or in laboratory reports.

Genogram

A family tree used to clearly and concisely display family history information, including the age, health, or cause of death of relatives.

CAGE Test

A screening tool for personal alcohol habits consisting of four questions: Cut down, Annoyed by criticism, Guilty feelings, and Eye opener.

Mental Status

A person's emotional and cognitive functioning that aims toward simultaneous life satisfaction in work, caring relationships, and within the self.

A-B-C-T

The four main headings of mental status assessment: Appearance, Behavior, Cognition, and Thought processes.

Aphasia

Impairment of language ability secondary to brain damage, causing a loss of ability to speak or write coherently or to understand speech or writing.

Four Unrelated Words Test

A highly sensitive and valid memory test that evaluates new learning by asking for recall of four semantically and phonetically diverse words at 5, 10, and 30 minutes.

Judgment

The ability to compare and evaluate alternatives and reach an appropriate course of action regarding daily or long-term goals.

Thought Processes

The way a person thinks, which should be logical, goal directed, coherent, and relevant.

Thought Content

What a person says, which should be consistent and logical.

Perceptions

A person's awareness of reality, which should be consistent and congruent with the examiner's.

Nutritional Status

The degree of balance between nutrient intake and nutrient requirements.

Optimal Nutritional Status

A state achieved when sufficient nutrients are consumed to support day-to-day body needs and any increased metabolic demands due to growth, pregnancy, or illness.

Undernutrition

A condition that occurs when nutritional reserves are depleted and/or nutrient intake is inadequate to meet day-to-day needs or added metabolic demands.

Overnutrition

A state caused by the consumption of nutrients, especially calories, sodium, and fat, in excess of body needs.

Nutrition Screening

The first step in nutritional assessment; a quick and easy way to identify individuals at nutrition risk based on easily obtained data.

24-Hour Recall

The easiest and most popular method for obtaining dietary intake information, where an individual recalls everything eaten within the last 24 hours.

Food Frequency Questionnaire

A dietary assessment tool used to collect information on how many times per day, week, or month an individual eats particular foods.

Food Diaries

A dietary assessment method requiring an individual to write down everything consumed for a period, customarily three days including two weekdays and one weekend day.

Cachectic

A physical appearance characterized by fat and muscle wasting, providing clues to overall nutritional status.

Anthropometric Measures

Measurement and evaluation of growth, development, and body composition, including height, weight, triceps skinfold thickness, and arm and head circumferences.

Body Mass Index (BMI)

A practical marker of optimal weight for height and indicator of obesity or protein-calorie malnutrition, calculated as $\text{BMI} = \left(\frac{\text{weight in pounds}}{\text{height in inches}^2}\right) \times 703$.