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Doctors overlook vital signs in diagnosing
delirium
Monday November 21, 2011 06:50:33 PM,
IANS
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Washington: Clinicians
are overlooking vital signs in the blood that could help them more
accurately diagnose patients with delirium, a condition tied to
shorter lifespans.
"These biomarkers linked to delirium provide us with a window to
the disease process," said study investigator Babar Ali Khan,
assistant professor of medicine at the Indiana University School
of Medicine.
"With a clearer understanding of underlying mechanisms, we can do
a better job at recognising and managing delirium and ultimately
of developing therapies," added Khan, who led the study, the
Journal of the American Geriatrics Society reports.
Delirium is a temporary state of confusion and fluctuating
consciousness resulting from high fever, intoxication, shock, or
other causes. It is also linked with decreased life span and
higher health care costs.
More than 60 percent of patients with the condition are not being
diagnosed, says the American Delirium Society, according to an
Indiana University statement.
Nor there is any US Food and Drug Administration-approved drug
therapy for its prevention or management. Study authors analysed
relevant peer-reviewed studies of delirium since 2000.
They concluded that while proper use of a patient's chemical
markers might help his or her doctors identify delirium and
predict its course, these biological tools are not being used
currently in routine clinical care.
"Future research on delirium should assess risk markers through
serial blood draws, comparing the levels during the delirious
episode and then follow up with levels after delirium resolution,"
Khan said. He estimates that 80 percent of critically ill patients
in the US develop delirium.
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