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Symptom Severity and Functional Impairment

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Symptom Severity and Functional Impairment
CPSY 6341 – Psychological Assessment
Walden University

Symptom Severity and Functional Impairment The treatment of individuals with suspected psychological issues can be a very complicated process. In trying to design the best and most effective treatment plan, a clinician or psychologist must first employ the use of certain tests, which are aimed at examining and assessing the mental status and mental functional ability of a client. The purpose of this paper is to provide a comparative analysis of two tests of symptom severity and two tests of functional impairment. The tests of symptom severity are the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) and the Structured Interview of Reported Symptoms (SIRS-2). The functional impairment tests are the Ohio Functional Assessment Battery (OFAB) and the Burns Brief Inventory of Communication and Cognition. Comparing and analyzing these tests will allow for the choosing of which test is the most appropriate for a client who have exhibited several different symptoms that indicates a possible presence of dementia, or a related cognitive deficit.
The Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) Folstein, Folstein, McHugh & Fanjiang (2001) describes the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) as “a brief, individually administered measure mental state, which is an assessable measure of cognitive status in adults.” The purpose of the MMSE is use to screen patients and determine if there’s an existence of cognitive impairment, and if so, what severity of cognitive impairment is exhibited at any given point in time. The MMSE follows the course of cognitive changes in a patient throughout the treatment period and also allows a psychologist who is treating the patient to document the patient’s response to such treatment. The intention of the MMSE is to help psychologists in carrying

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