• Med. Clin. North Am. · Nov 2010

    Review

    An approach to the patient with cognitive impairment: delirium and dementia.

    • Jason P Caplan and Terry Rabinowitz.
    • St Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center, 350 West Thomas Road, Phoenix, AZ 85013, USA. jpcaplan@gmail.com
    • Med. Clin. North Am. 2010 Nov 1;94(6):1103-16, ix.

    AbstractPatients with cognitive impairment can be divided into 2 broad groups: those with chronic cognitive decline (most likely diagnosable with a dementia) and those with acute cognitive changes (most likely experiencing a delirium). However, diagnosis in clinical practice is far more complicated than it is in textbooks. Perhaps the greatest hurdle in evaluating the cognitively impaired patient is the clarification of a cohesive history. Unfortunately, the cognitively impaired patient is most often unable to provide such a history, and in the absence of a reliable family member, friend, or caregiver to fill in the gaps, diagnostic clarity can be difficult to achieve. This article outlines the broad diagnostic spectra of delirium and dementia, reviews current understanding of their pathogenesis, and discusses useful diagnostic and therapeutic techniques.Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…