Delirium Detection and Impact of Comorbid Health Conditions in a Post-Acute Rehabilitation Hospital Setting
Misdiagnosis and under-detection of delirium may occur in many medical settings. This is important to address as delirium clearly increases risk of morbidity and mortality in such settings. This study assessed whether Veterans who screened positive on a delirium severity measure (Memorial Delirium A...
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Published in | PloS one Vol. 11; no. 11; p. e0166754 |
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Main Authors | , , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
United States
Public Library of Science
30.11.2016
Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Misdiagnosis and under-detection of delirium may occur in many medical settings. This is important to address as delirium clearly increases risk of morbidity and mortality in such settings. This study assessed whether Veterans who screened positive on a delirium severity measure (Memorial Delirium Assessment Scale; MDAS) differed from those with and without corresponding medical documentation of delirium in terms of cognitive functioning, psychiatric/medical history, and medication use. A medical record review of 266 inpatients at a VA post-acute rehabilitation unit found that 10.9% were identified as delirious according to the MDAS and/or medical records. Of the Veterans who screened positive on the MDAS (N = 19), 68.4% went undetected by medical screening. Undetected cases had a higher number of comorbid medical conditions as measured by the Age-Adjusted Charlson Index (AACI) scores (median = 9, SD = 3.15; U = 5.5, p = .003) than medically documented cases. For Veterans with a score of 7 or greater on the AACI, the general relative risk for delirium was 4.46. Delirium is frequently under-detected in a post-acute rehabilitation unit, particularly for Veterans with high comorbid illness. The relative risk of delirium is up to 4.46 for those with high medical burden, suggesting the need for more comprehensive delirium screening in these patients. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 Conceptualization: JS KT LAB NG JMF.Data curation: JS KT LAB.Formal analysis: KT JS.Investigation: KT JS.Methodology: KT JS NG JMF LAB KR.Project administration: KT JS LAB.Resources: LAB.Software: LAB.Supervision: JS LAB.Validation: JS KT LAB NG JMF.Visualization: JS NG JMF JRA LAB KT KR.Writing – original draft: JS KT NG JMF.Writing – review & editing: JS NG JMF JRA LAB KT KR. Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. |
ISSN: | 1932-6203 1932-6203 |
DOI: | 10.1371/journal.pone.0166754 |