Delirium among older people is often overlooked as a disease, due primarily to a lack of public understanding and medical personnel underestimating the possibility of the condition occurring, Chi Mei Medical Center said.
The Tainan hospital said that it admitted an 82-year-old woman, whose family said that she had developed shingles.
The woman, who was diabetic, had hypertension and had experienced a stroke, complained of pain and a loss of appetite because of the shingles, and had become increasingly more active at night while sleeping through the day, the family said, adding that she had also started speaking nonsense and and was unable to recognize people.
The woman was diagnosed with delirium at the hospital and has recovered after treatment.
Older people, especially those with chronic diseases, can develop delirium, and in certain situations it can be fatal, the hospital said.
Chen Tien-ho (陳殿和), a doctor in the hospital’s Department of Geriatrics and Gerontology, said that delirium causes an acute disturbance in a person’s mental abilities, resulting in confused thinking and reduced environmental awareness.
If untreated, the condition can become chronic and could have permanent aftereffects, Chen said.
It is imperative that a doctor first address the acute diseases that cause the delirium or find potential flash points that might have caused the condition, such as inappropriate use of medicine, pain, malnutrition or sleeping disorders, he said.
The treatment process is always an interdepartmental effort, Chen said, adding that an important part of taking care of the person is informing family members how the condition occurred and how they are to be treated.
Since the hospital established a set of procedures on how to diagnose delirium in June last year, it said it experienced a 14 percent drop in the mortality rate of people with delirium on a monthly basis from October last year to January.
The hospital has also seen a 100 percent drop in delirium patients returning within three days, as well as a 54 percent drop in patients transferring to another medical facility after leaving the hospital, both on a monthly basis from October to January, it said.
The hospital added that the conditions of people with delirium still at the hospital have improved significantly, demonstrating that as long as there is timely intervention and treatment, delirium can be cured.
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