Handling delirium on call

Abstract

Delirium is a common cause of disturbed behavior in medically ill people and is often undetected and poorly managed. It is a condition at the interface of medicine and psychiatry that is all too often owned by neither. Despite its clinical importance, delirium is often not detected, or is misdiagnosed as or other psychiatric illness.Hence, identification of risk factors, education of professional carers, and a systematic approach to management can improve the outcome of the syndrome. This article is for psychiatry postgraduate students to understand various aspects of delirium, bedside assessment with management of the patient with a focus on etiology , predisposing factors ,pathogenesis & different types of presentation in clinical practice.

Keywords

• delirium
• psychiatric emergency
• confusional state