What is Altered mental status?

Answer 1

There is a whole array of symptoms that fall under this category.The point of this phrase is it gives us a quick way to say that something new is going on with the patient that affects brain function. Keep in mind that you have to know the patient well enough to know that his symptoms are not normal ("baseline" in medical terms) to him.

You can say that someone has altered mental status if he exhibits any of these, or exhibits them more intensely than normal to him:

-Confusion

-Reducedalertness
-Delusions

-Reduced emotional control

-Impaired judgement

-Disruptive behavior changes

-Reduced coordination

You may have someone with baseline dementia who normally doesn't know where he is, and that is not altered mental status for him. But then he gets a urinary tract infection that affects his thinking even more than usual, is more agitated, confused, unable to do what he normally does, and therefore now we would report that he has altered mental status and this leads medical staff to start looking for changes in his health that can affect the brain.