delirium Archives - Better Health While Aging

10 Things to Know About Delirium

Pop quiz: What aging health problem is extremely common, has serious implications for an older person’s health and wellbeing, and can often – but not always – be prevented?

It’s delirium. In my opinion, this is one of the most important senior health problems for caregivers to know about, since families can be integral to preventing and detecting this condition.

In this article, I’ll explain just what delirium is, and how it compares to dementia. Then I’ll share 10 things you should know, and what you can do.

What is Delirium

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Hospital Delirium: What to know & do

by Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH

“How should delirium be managed in the hospital?”

This question came up during a Q & A session, as we were discussing the Choosing Wisely recommendation to avoid tying down older adults who become confused during a hospitalization. (See item 5 in this article.)

Delirium is a common and important problem for all older adults in the hospital; it doesn’t just happen to people with a dementia diagnosis!

But many family caregivers have hardly heard of hospital delirium. This is too bad, since there’s a lot that caregivers can do to prevent this serious complication, or at least prevent an older loved one from being physically restrained if delirium does occur.

In this post, I’ll review what older adults and family caregivers absolutely should know about hospital delirium. And, we’ll cover some of the things you can do if it happens to your loved one. [Read more…]

Delirium: How Caregivers Can Protect Alzheimer’s Patients

by Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH 25 Comments

This week’s Q & A call was about how to better manage health and healthcare issues, when you’re taking care of someone with a dementia such as Alzheimer’s.

Most of the caregivers’ questions were about delirium. This is the state of worse-than-usual confusion that people can develop when they are sick or under serious stress.

I love talking to Alzheimer’s caregivers about delirium, because this is a really common problem that family caregivers absolutely can do something about!

The key is to know that people with dementia are especially prone to get delirium when they fall ill (especially in the hospital). And then you’ll want to know the basics on how to spot this problem, and how to get the doctors to address it properly.

A fact I wish more caregivers of elders knew: delirium can be the only obvious sign of a potentially serious health problem, such as a heart attack, a urinary tract infection, or a pneumonia. (Especially when it comes to older people with Alzheimer’s, they often don’t voice focused complaints the way younger people do.)

The trouble is, even though delirium is very common in older adults, studies have shown that it’s often missed by doctors and nurses. This is a important problem in healthcare, for three key reasons: [Read more…]

A common problem that speeds Alzheimer’s decline, and how to avoid it

by Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH 128 Comments

Earlier this week, while I was listening to a social work colleague (Mary Hulme of Moonstone Geriatrics) give a talk on dementia at the public library, the following question came up:

“How can one keep Alzheimer’s from getting worse?”

Now, Alzheimer’s disease — the most common underlying cause of dementia symptoms — does slowly get worse no matter what. (Given enough years, it will eventually damage the brain to the point of causing a slow death, which is why Alzheimer’s is a terminal disease.)

But on the other hand, we do know that some things tend to slow the progression of brain decline, whereas other things seem to speed up the decline. In other words, the actions we take — and don’t take — can influence a person’s dementia journey.

In my experience, people often have heard about things that might slow down decline (exercise is one of my favorites).

But it seems to me that people are often much less well-informed about the things that can speed up Alzheimer’s decline. This is too bad, because often it is possible to take actions to avoid or minimize things that might cause dementia to get worse faster.

So today I’m going to write about what I think is the most important of these potentially dementia-accelerating problems: delirium.