Objective: Delirium is a common neuropsychiatric disorder. Delirium incidence varies among different clinical settings. Old age and previous cognitive deficits are known as to be the risk factors for delirium. Delirium is associated high mortality rates and poor therapeutical outcomes. We aim to investigate morbidity and rehabilitation outcomes of patients, who developed delirium.
Methods: We investigatde the records of patients who were referred to the consultation-liaison department for one-year period (October 2011- September 2012) and diagnosed to have delirium. Sociodemographic features, duration of hospital stay and physical outcome scores were collected retrospectively. Their duration of hospital stay and physical improvements were discussed in regards to non-delirium patients.
Results: There were nine patients with diagnosed delirium between October 2011 and September 2012. Seven of them were male, and two of them were female. Primary diagnoses of these patients were ischemic cerebrovascular disease (n=5), hypoxic cerebrovascular disease (n=2), hemorrhagic cerebrovascular disease (n=1) and spinal cord injury (n=1). Patients were 59.1±15.1 years old . Duration of hospital stay in average was 37.9±22.2 days (mean±SD) for the patients, who developed delirium. The average duration of hospital stay for non-delirium patients was 51.8±12.9 days. Physical rehabilitation outcome did not provide significant improvement among patients, who developed delirium.
Conclusion: Patients with delirium have poor physical rehabilitation outcomes and shorter duration of hospital stay than the patients without delirium. Diagnosis and treatment of delirium needs a particular interest in rehabilitation setting to improve rehabilitation outcomes for these patients.