Delirium

Craig R Keenan; Sharad Jain

doi:10.1016/j.mcna.2021.12.003

Delirium

Med Clin North Am. 2022 May;106(3):459-469. doi: 10.1016/j.mcna.2021.12.003. Epub 2022 Apr 4.

Authors

Craig R Keenan¹, Sharad Jain²

Affiliations

¹ University of California, Davis School of Medicine, 4150 V Street, Suite 1100, Sacramento, California 95817, USA. Electronic address: crkeenan@ucdavis.edu.
² University of California, Davis School of Medicine, 4610 X Street, Suite 4202, Sacramento, California 95817, USA.

PMID: 35491066
DOI: 10.1016/j.mcna.2021.12.003

Abstract

Delirium is an acute and fluctuating disorder characterized by a disturbance in attention and cognition. Delirium is underdiagnosed by clinicians, but there are excellent diagnostic tools using history and physical examination that can assist clinicians in making the diagnosis in multiple settings (ie, CAM, CAM-ICU, 3D-CAM, bCAM, 4AT, and UB-CAM). Delirium is caused by underlying medical conditions and is often multifactorial, so a full diagnosis requires a careful assessment for a wide range of underlying conditions. Physical examination has not been well studied in this regard, but still can provide useful clues to the clinician.

Keywords: Assessment; Attention; CAM; Cognition; Confusion; Delirium; Examination.

Publication types

Review

MeSH terms

Delirium* / diagnosis
Delirium* / etiology
Delirium* / therapy
Humans