Current psychiatry reports
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Curr Psychiatry Rep · Jun 2002
ReviewDelirium: an important (but often unrecognized) clinical syndrome.
Delirium is a clinical syndrome characterized by the acute onset of a disturbance in consciousness accompanied by a reduced ability to focus, sustain, or shift attention. It may foreshadow impending death in as many as 25% of hospitalized inpatients and may be a source of significant morbidity in those who present with this syndrome. ⋯ This paper will address this complex condition, focusing on its history, definition, epidemiology, pathophysiology, recognition, risk factors, and clinical quantification. Its prevention and treatment will be covered elsewhere in this journal.
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Families have always cared for relatives with dementia, but scientific advances in diagnosis, management, and treatment will make caring more challenging as more people are diagnosed in early stages and more live longer in severe stages with better health care. This paper discusses the increasing prevalence, the economic value and cost of caregiving, the impact of caregiving in families with and without dementia, the subjective experience of dementia and quality of life, the ethical challenges of clinician-family partnerships, the complexity of family systems and processes that impact care patterns, homicide-suicide in caregiving, long-term care staff training, and theoretic models.