She starts the test with orientation.
Where are we now? (Hospital name/street/town.)
What is today’s date? (Year, month and day, please.)
Then, what is the time to the nearest hour?
Next up’s attention and calculation:
count backwards from a hundred in sevens.
Here, he struggles but can spell WORLD backwards,
taps for each A in a letter sequence.
Language and visual-spatial skills try him
with drawing a clock at twenty past nine
but he confidently names a wristwatch and
follows the command to pick up a pen.
In memory he repeats ‘ball’, ‘safety pin’,
and ‘driveway’, remembers that John Smith lives
at 42, High Street, Bedford, having
learned this only ten minutes earlier.
Though I can’t read her notes, his score seems high
but I’m certain he’s aced it when she asks,
‘Do you have problems remembering words?’
He thinks a few moments and then he says,
‘Yes. The other day, I couldn’t remember obsequious.’
