Why is it important to do a detailed assessment?
Delineating signs and symptoms through detailed clinical history and examination help ascertain key areas of concern and presence (or absence) of a mental health disorder.
How are structured assessment tools used in child and Adolescent Psychiatry?
Use of structured assessment tools in child and adolescent psychiatry Clinical judgment plays a pivotal role in the diagnosis and management of children and adolescents. Careful clinical interviews of multiple informants are usually the best method to aid clinical decision making.
Are there any discrepancies in the assessment and treatment report?
There are bound to be discrepancies in the report; nevertheless, multi-source information is a requirement during diagnosis and management. Assessment and treatment are generally multidisciplinary.
Why is it important to review previous consultation notes?
Reviewing clinical notes from previous consultations puts the clinician in a clearer frame of mind in terms of future course of enquiry and future planning. It is good practice to have a recording format for recording history, examination, and clinical discussion details.
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Analyze the early assessment process. Why are accurate assessment and sound treatment protocols essential? What are the implications of stigmatization and improper diagnosis? Substantiate your rationale with scholarly research.
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Introduction Assessment is a process for defining the nature of a problem, determining a diagnosis, and developing specific treatment recommendations for addressing the problem or diagnosis. Early ass view the full answer
How does the practice setting affect assessment?
The practice setting will influence the therapist’s choice of assessment and may serve to enhance or constrain her assessment practice. For example, if a therapist moves to a service that encourages standardised assessment and has a range of published tests available, then her knowledge of different tests and skills in standardised assessment may increase. Conversely, a therapist may be experienced with a particular standardised test but find that it is not available in a new practice setting or that with the demand of her new caseload there is not enough time to administer the test in its entirety. It may not be possible in some settings to assess the client at several different times in varying test environments and cover all the areas of interest within the assessment. Therefore, the therapist needs to use her clinical judgement to select the most effective assessment strategy within the physical and political boundaries of the therapy envi-ronment. She may only be able to conduct a brief assessment and will need to make decisions about the person’s overall ability and prognosis from limited data projections (see section on predictive validity in Chapter 6, pp. 178–80). This is where the quality of the therapist’s clini-cal reasoning can be critical.
What is assessment in therapy?
Assessment was defined in the Introduction as the overall process of selecting and using multiple data-collection tools and various sources of information to inform decisions required for guid-ing therapeutic intervention during the whole therapy process. Assessment involves interpreting information collected to make clinical decisions related to the needs of the person and the ap-propriateness and nature of their therapy. Assessment involves the evaluation of the outcomes of therapeutic interventions.
What is function in therapy?
For therapists, function is defined as the ability to perform tasks, activities and/or occupations to expected levels of competency. Dysfunction occurs when a person cannot perform tasks, activi-ties and/or occupations to these normal standards of proficiency. Function is achieved through the interaction of performance components. These are subsystems within the individual, such as the motor system, the sensory system or the cognitive and perceptual systems. As the interaction between the motor, sensory, perceptual and cognitive systems is complex, the definition of each system implicitly refers to the functioning of other systems. For example, Allport (1955) defines perception as relating to our awareness of the objects or conditions about us and the impression objects make upon our senses. Perception relates to the way things look or the way they sound, feel, taste or smell. Perception involves, to some degree, an understanding awareness, a meaning or a recognition of objects and the awareness of complex environmental situations as well as single objects. This definition implicitly refers to both the sensory and cognitive systems, that is before an awareness of objects and conditions is registered sensory stimuli have been received from the environment and transmitted by the visual, auditory, gustatory, olfactory and/or so-matic sensory systems to the brain, and the cognitive system is involved with accessing infor-mation, stored in the memory, required to recognise stimuli in the context of past experience. It appears that tightly defined experimental conditions are required in order to attempt to evaluate the discrete functioning of any one system. In clinical settings, where the aim is to assess the individual in their everyday context, the imposition of such experimental conditions impinges on the ecological validity of assessment. Therefore, during clinical evaluation, it is preferable to evaluate the motor, sensory, perceptual and cognitive systems together.
What is a published measurement tool?
published measurement tool, designed for a specific purpose in a given population, with detailed instructions provided as to when and how it is to be administered and scored, interpretation of the scores, and results of investigations or reliability and validity. (Cole et al., 1995, p. 22)
What is the organisational context of health and social care?
The organisational and policy context for health and social care has been under frequent change and reform, particularly over the last decade. In recent years, the provision of health and social care has been exposed to a more market-orientated approach in which government fund-holders and organisations who purchase therapy services have become more concerned about value for money and require assurances that the service provided is both clinically effective and cost-effective. The demand for cost-effective health care is forcing rehabilitation professionals to be able to prove the efficacy and efficiency of their interventions. In the current policy context that focuses on quality, national standards, best value and evidence-based practice (EBP), the ability to demonstrate service outcomes has become increasingly important; for example, the Department of Health (DoH; 1998a) states that the modernisation of care ‘moves the focus away from who provides the care, and places it firmly on the quality of services experienced by, and the outcomes achieved for, individuals and their carers and families’ (paragraph 1.7).An emphasis on clinical governance means that therapists are more overtly responsible for the quality of their practice, and this is reflected in an increased interest in EBP. Sheelagh Richards, Secretary of the College of Occupational Therapists (COT), states:
How does familiarity influence performance?
Familiarity and practice influence performance. When a person practises a task over time, the demands of the task are learned and the person becomes more efficient in the use of his ca-pabilities related to performing that task; the task becomes perceived as being easier. A good example is learning to drive a car. Two adults might have the same capacities, but the person who is familiar with driving a car will be better at driving than the person with no driving experience. Another example is that of cooking: ‘it is less demanding for a person to cook a familiar recipe from memory than to follow a new recipe from a cookbook’ (Hilko Culler, 1993,
Is rehabilitation a mixture of science?
The evolution of medicine and rehabilitation has been a mixture of science, philosophy, sociology, and intuition. Some of the finest practitioners may be some of the worst scientists. However, they may have an extraordinary intuitive science. Because of this fine mixture, it is difficult to quantify assessments, treatments, and outcomes. Nevertheless, this needs to be done. (Lewis and Bottomley, 1994, p. 139)