I invited John, one of our neuropsychologists, to our meeting on April 27, 2011. His task was to explain the role of neuropsychological tests such as subtests from the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS). As you well know, if you read my blog, my hobby-horse has been the innovative strategy suggested by Beglinger et al about adding RBANS subtests […]
Delirium Screening Scales Pounding Down the Home Stretch: The Delirium Observation Screening Scale and the Nursing Delirium Screening Scale Nose to Nose?
April 25, 2011 By
Today I’ve got an ambitious post because our Delirium Early Detection and Prevention Project committee has an ambitious project. Ever since the Neufeld Study, we’ve been scrambling to come up with an acceptable replacement for the Confusion Assessment Method-Intensive Care Unit (CAM-ICU) screen we were planning to use on our proposed general medical unit pilot […]
Delirium Recognition and Management Video and Commentary
April 18, 2011 By
Geriatric Nursing Resources for Care of Older Adults :: Videos#player_container. Delirium: The under-recognized medical emergency from Hartford Institute – NYU on Vimeo. This is an excellent video about delirium. It’s about an hour long so adjust your schedule accordingly. It describes the use of the Confusion Assessment Method (CAM). Just because I’m posting this video on […]
The 6th Meeting of the Delirium Prevention Project and the Saga of the Delirium Screening Scale Poll Continues—Vote Before it Changes Again!
April 14, 2011 By
I declare the delirium screening scale poll has gone through more changes than I can shake a stick at. First there was a write-in candidate for, of all things, the Single Question in Delirium (SQiD)! This is essentially a succinct form of gathering collateral information from a family member (or perhaps a nurse) and is […]
Out in the Weeds in Delirium Early Detection and Prevention: Part II
April 10, 2011 By
The goal is to detect delirium early and prevent it. What’s the best way to do that? Certainly we’d want to remember the risk factors for delirium, although the worst are unmodifiable and include age 65 and over and pre-existing cognitive impairment. The main multicomponent non-pharmacologic strategies, adapted from Inouye’s Hospital Elder Life Program (HELP) […]
Delirium Prevention: Out in the Weeds
April 9, 2011 By
Dr. Roger Kathol’s term for doing something innovative and not yet supported by medical research was being “out in the weeds”. That’s where I think the delirium prevention project is right now. We can’t find either a hospital unit or a delirium screening scale that would be an exact fit for each other. Studies tend […]
Picking and Choosing from Delirium Screening Instruments—and then What?
April 6, 2011 By
Because we’re so focused on finding a reasonably well-validated delirium rating scale for the general medical unit, it might be easy to lose sight of the necessary next step. When a nurse identifies a patient as delirious, what happens next? I’ve blogged about this before. A common complaint from nurses is that doctors fail to […]
Reflections on the First Meeting of the Delirium Early Detection and Prevention Project
January 14, 2011 By
Our Delirium Early Detection and Prevention Project had its first meeting, as you may know from my blog on the date it occurred, January 12, 2011. Now we’re shooting emails like laser guns, we’re scheduling meetings out to April, and we’re working on refining the group’ s Charter to map out the goals and how […]
Well Said…