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delirium

File:An_alcoholic_man_with_delirium_Wellcome_L0060780_(level_correction).jpg · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons

DiseaseQ160796· pop 54· linked from 691 articles

Also known as acute confusional state

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), disr

OverviewAI-generated

Delirium is a medical condition classified under the ICD-10 name “Delirium due to known physiological condition.” It is associated with the ICPC 2 code P71 and the NCI Thesaurus identifier C2981. The condition is also linked to the SYMP_0000021 ontology term.

Research on delirium is extensive, with 30,607 records found in PubMed and 1,619 entries in ClinicalTrials.gov. The subject is referenced by 691 other encyclopedia articles. A Commons category titled “Delirium syndrome” exists for related media.

Synthesized by Vinony from 11 facts across 5 sources: Wikidata, PubMed, ClinicalTrials.gov, Medline, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

Key facts

Medical condition.name
Delirium
Medical condition.specialty
Intensive care medicine, neurology, psychiatry, geriatrics
Medical condition.caption
Delirium is an acute disturbance of cognition
Medical condition.symptoms
Agitation, confusion, drowsiness, hallucinations, delusions, memory problems
Medical condition.onset
Any age, but more often in people aged 65 and above
Medical condition.duration
Days to weeks, sometimes months (several hours when caused by anticholinergic medications, like dicyclomine, diphenhydramine, doxylamine, promethazine)
Medical condition.types
Hyperactive, hypoactive, mixed level of activity
Medical condition.causes
Inconclusive
Medical condition.risks
Infection, chronic health problems, certain medications, neurological problems, sleep deprivation, surgery, hospitalization at an intensive care unit
Medical condition.differential
Dementia
Medical condition.treatment
Treating underlying cause, symptomatic management with medication
Medical condition.medication
Depending on the underlying cause

via Wikipedia infobox

Health references

ICD-10
F05 — Delirium due to known physiological condition
Source: U.S. National Library of Medicine (ICD-10-CM · MedlinePlus). Not medical advice.

Research

30,607 papers

via PubMed

Clinical Trials

1,619 registered

via ClinicalTrials.gov

~42 min read

Encyclopedic overview

29 sections
Contents
  • Definition
  • Signs and symptoms
  • Causes
  • Predisposing factors
  • Precipitating factors
  • Pathophysiology
  • Animal models
  • Cerebrospinal fluid
  • Neuroimaging
  • Neurophysiology
  • Neuropathology
  • Diagnosis
  • General settings
  • Intensive care unit
  • Differential diagnosis
  • Prevention
  • Non-pharmacological
  • Pharmacological
  • Treatment
  • Multidomain interventions
  • Medications
  • Prognosis
  • Dementia in ICU survivors
  • Epidemiology
  • Society and culture
  • Costs
  • References
  • Further reading
  • External links

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, disturbances of consciousness, or altered state of consciousness, as well as 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 such as diphenhydramine, promethazine, and dicyclomine, 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'.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “delirium” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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