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COMMENTS AND OPINIONS
Delirium in Older Patients in Intensive Care Units
Intissar Sleiman, MD;
Renzo Rozzini, MD;
Marco Trabucchi, MD
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| Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings. |
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As reported by Pisani et al,1 delirium is a frequent event in medical intensive care units (ICUs).1 On the basis of our experience in an ICU subunit for elderly patients, we would like to emphasize the importance of detecting delirium at ICU admission and at brief time intervals. The subunit is a 4-bed unit with technological equipment (eg, monitors for cardiac and respiratory function, noninvasive mechanical ventilators, peristaltic and volumetric pumps for intravenous therapy, and enteral nutrition) that allow for the admission of patients requiring frequent evaluation of vital signs and/or intensive procedures but usually not invasive monitoring.2
We suggest the need of monitoring delirium not only to counteract risk factors amenable to interventions, such as those reported by Pisani et al,1 but also as a continuous evaluation of the efficacy of clinical care. In fact, if delirium persists longer than . . . [Full Text of this Article] AUTHOR INFORMATION
RELATED ARTICLE
Characteristics Associated With Delirium in Older Patients in a Medical Intensive Care Unit
Margaret A. Pisani, Terrence E. Murphy, Peter H. Van Ness, Katy L. B. Araujo, and Sharon K. Inouye
Arch Intern Med. 2007;167(15):1629-1634.
ABSTRACT
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