What is the general procedure of treating patients with mild hallucinations. do they take a mental status examination?

Answer 1

A "mental status exam" can be formal, or informal and conversational. A formal exam would simply ask the questions, one after another, such as:

• Tell me your name.
• I'm going to tell you 4 words that I want you to remember for later. (Say 4 words.)
• Where are you right now?
• What day of the week is it today?
• What is today's date? (or separately, What is the month? What is the year?)
• Who is the current USA President? (or other top leader)
• Who was the USA President before that?
• Remember the words I told you before -- tell me those words now.

However, some of those questions can be "asked" informally, such as:

• How long ago did you enter the hospital? (If the person was admitted more than 24 hours before.) And, that was what day?
• Tell me the day of the week it is now?

More important than a Mini-mental exam, though, is assessment of the hallucinations. Questions like these are important:

• Have you been hearing voices?
• (If yes.) What do the voices tell you?
• Do you voices tell you to hurt anyone?
• (If yes) Do the voices tell you to hurt yourself? Or hurt someone else?
• (If yes) How do the voices suggest you hurt yourself or someone else?
• (If the answer includes weapons) Do you have (the item the hallucination says to use, for example if the voices say "a gun", you'd ask, Do you have a gun to use?
• What else do the voices tell you to do?

Other questions should try to pinpoint things like:

• When did the visual or auditory hallucination begin?
• Does it happen all the time, constantly? Or just at certain times?
• Is it more after dark / nighttime?
• What meds had you taken before these started?
• Do you or did you use street drugs?
• When was the last time you slept? (Prolonged lack of sleep can trigger hallucinations; sleep will improve them if this was the only cause.)
• Have you had hallucinations before?
• (if yes) Are the hallucinations different now?
• Etc.

You may not be able to ask a lot of questions. The answers should guide what you need to ask next.