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Concept
Delirium
Summary
Delirium (formerly acute confusional state, an ambiguous term that is now discouraged) is a specific state of acute confusion attributable to the direct physiological consequence of a medical condition, effects of a psychoactive substance, or multiple causes, which usually develops over the course of hours to days. As a syndrome, delirium presents with disturbances in attention, awareness, and higher-order cognition. People with delirium may experience other neuropsychiatric disturbances, including changes in psychomotor activity (e.g. hyperactive, hypoactive, or mixed level of activity), disrupted sleep-wake cycle, emotional disturbances, and perceptual disturbances (e.g. hallucinations and delusions), although these features are not required for diagnosis.
Diagnostically, delirium encompasses both the syndrome of acute confusion and its underlying organic process known as an acute encephalopathy. The cause of delirium may be either a disease process inside the brain or a process outside the brain that nonetheless affects the brain. Delirium may be the result of an underlying medical condition (e.g., infection or hypoxia), side effect of a medication, substance intoxication (e.g., opioids or hallucinogenic deliriants), substance withdrawal (e.g., alcohol or sedatives), or from multiple factors affecting one's overall health (e.g., malnutrition, pain, etc.). In contrast, the emotional and behavioral features due to primary psychiatric disorders (e.g., as in schizophrenia, bipolar disorder) do not meet the diagnostic criteria for 'delirium.'
Delirium may be difficult to diagnose without first establishing a person's usual mental function or 'cognitive baseline'. Delirium can be confused with multiple psychiatric disorders or chronic organic brain syndromes because of many overlapping signs and symptoms in common with dementia, depression, psychosis, etc. Delirium may occur in persons with existing mental illness, baseline intellectual disability, or dementia, entirely unrelated to any of these conditions.
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