Abstract
This chapter provides an overview of the prevalence, risk factors, and outcomes of delirium. Delirium is common in patients requiring critical care. Estimates of the prevalence vary from 16% to 89% depending on the type of delirium, assessment tool used, and healthcare setting. Multiple risk factors predispose (e.g., old age, comorbidity, frailty) and precipitate (e.g., surgery, mechanical ventilation, pharmacological agent administration) a patient’s risk. Clinical care processes can contribute to the iatrogenic rate of incident delirium following hospital admission. Indeed, the early identification of delirium is necessary for the healthcare team to mitigate the cascade of negative outcomes resulting from this syndrome.
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Abbreviations
- ADL:
-
Activities of daily living
- APACHE II:
-
Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II
- CAM-ICU:
-
Confusion Assessment Method for the ICU
- DECCA:
-
Delirium Epidemiology in Critical Care
- IADL:
-
Instrumental activities of daily living
- ICDSC:
-
Intensive Care Delirium Screening Checklist
- ICU:
-
Intensive care unit
- IQCODE:
-
Informant Questionnaire on Cognitive Decline in the Elderly
- PICS:
-
Post-intensive care syndrome
- PTSD:
-
Post-traumatic stress disorder
- RASS:
-
Richmond Agitation-Sedation Scale
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Kehler, D.S., Sanjanwala, R.M., Arora, R.C. (2020). Epidemiology of Delirium in Critically Ill Adults: Prevalence, Risk Factors, and Outcomes. In: Hughes, C., Pandharipande, P., Ely, E. (eds) Delirium. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25751-4_3
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