Assessing Fall Risk and Reducing Falls in the Elderly More than one in four American adults 65 years of age and older have reported falling and one in five sustain a severe fall-related injury, including fractures and traumatic brain injuries (CDC, 2021). Falls account for 56% of injury-related...

Differentiating Delirium, Dementia, and Depression Elderly patients are at high risk of mood and cognitive impairments such as depression, delirium and dementia. Delirium is an acute, transient and reversible cause of brain dysfunction, usually triggered by one or more precipitating factors...

Mental Health Assessment Mental health assessment is a critical component in the neurologic assessment and changes may have pathologic or pharmacologic causes. While the sequence of certain parts of this assessment is important, we must also be flexible in structuring...

Neurologic Assessment Much of the neurologic assessment is ongoing as you take a health history and perform the other components of a full physical assessment. When focusing on the neurologic system, it is helpful to organize the neurologic assessment into five...

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) The American Psychiatric Association (2022) describes posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a “psychiatric disorder that may occur in people who have experienced or witnessed a traumatic event, series of events or set of circumstances. An...