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DeliriumDelirium is an acute and relatively sudden decline in attention-focus, perception, and cognition. In medical usage it is not synonymous with drowsiness, and may occur without it. It is commonly associated with a disturbance of consciousness . The change in cognition or the development of a perceptual disturbance, must be one that is not better accounted for by a preexisting, established, or evolving dementia. Usually the rapidly fluctuating time course of delirium is used to help in the latter distinction.Because it represents a change in cognitive function, the diagnosis cannot be made without knowledge of the affected person's baseline level of cognitive function.Without careful assessment, delirium can easily be confused with a number of psychiatric disorders because many of the signs and symptoms are conditions present in dementia, depression, and psychosis. Delirium is probably the single most common acute disorder affecting adults in general hospitals. It affects 10-20% of all hospitalized adults, and 30-40% of elderly hospitalized patients.Delirium itself is not a disease, but rather a clinical syndrome , which result from an underlying disease or new problem with mentation. Like its components , delirium is simply the common symptomatic manifestation of early brain or mental dysfunction .Distressing symptoms of delirium are sometimes treated with antipsychotics, preferably those with minimal anticholinergic activity, such as haloperidol or risperidone, or else with benzodiazepines, which decrease the anxiety felt by a person who may also be disoriented, and has difficulty completing tasks. However, since these drug treatments do not address the underlying cause of delirium, and may mask changes in delirium which themselves may be helpful in assessing the patient's underlying changes in health, their use is difficult. Because delirium is a mere symptom of another problem which may be very subtle, the wisdom of treatment of the delirious patient with drugs must overcome natural skepticism, and requires a high degree of skill. (From the Wikpedia article Delirium.) Download PDF Image ResultsLoading...
BioPortfolio Ltd. offers e-mail and postal lists for Delirium scientists - we have details of around 1513 individuals working on Delirium . This page has been viewed 78 times Recent Search Terms used to find this page: . Browse BioPortfolio's InDepth service - alphabetically: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z or by Most Publications, recently searched for, or most viewed. Search for Delirium across BioPortfolio, or bestselling Delirium books or recently published Delirium books . Wikipedia excerpt, where present, licenced under the GNU Free Documentation License. Resources from the NCBI applied. Selected MeSH subject headings created and maintained by the US NLM are used in conjunction with additional keywords. 2006-2008 MeSH. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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