Acta medica Croatica : c̆asopis Hravatske akademije medicinskih znanosti
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Delirium is a serious neuropsychiatric disorder and pediatric delirium (PD) is a similarly serious condition. PD is understudied and very often misdiagnosed, especially in pediatric intensive care units (PICU). ⋯ There are many scales and tests to diagnose delirium but none of them is specific enough to diagnose PD. Although PD is a serious complication at PICU, clinical guidelines for PD are still lacking, therefore additional investigations are needed to bring them out.
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Postoperative delirium or acute confusional state is common after major surgery. The objective of this article is to provide an overview of the current knowledge of the risk factors and the importance of anesthetic technique in postoperative delirium. The risk factors for postoperative delirium include patient characteristics such as advanced age, poor preoperative functional state, depression, and abnormal serum levels of sodium, potassium, glucose and albumin. ⋯ Prevention and optimal treatment consist of minimizing or correcting these metabolic and other insults. Early detection of coexisting postoperative medical problems, pain, infections, or other complications is crucial. Regional anesthetic techniques have many potential advantages such as reduced stress response and good postoperative analgesia, but further investigations are needed to confirm these observations.
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Postoperative mental disorders are a common complication of cardiovascular surgery, with serious consequences. The main types of postoperative mental disorders include postoperative delirium and postoperative cognitive dysfunction. Their incidence ranges up to 15%-80%. ⋯ For postoperative prevention, multimodal approach is applied. It includes early extubation, early enteral nutrition, early mobilization, regular evaluation of cognitive function, activation of cognitive function and optimal analgesia, which requires teamwork of medical staff who care for patients. Combining all these methods can show promising results in reducing the incidence of postoperative mental disorders as a complication in cardiovascular surgery.
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Delirium is a complication of intensive care treatment associated with permanent cognitive decline and increased mortality after hospital discharge. In several studies, postoperative pain was found as a possible precipitating factor. Aggressive pain treatment is part of current multicompartment protocols for delirium prevention after hip fracture. Protocol based sedation, pain and delirium management in intensive care units have been shown to have clinical and economic advantages.
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The use of physical or chemical restraint in delirious patients in the intensive care unit (ICU) is related to an array of ethical and medicolegal dilemmas. In most cases, they arise from insufficient knowledge of the regulations in force or due to their vague wording. The aim of this review article is to outline the basic views of the medical profession regarding restraint use as a method in the treatment of delirium and to give an insight into the existing legislation at the national and international level. ⋯ A delirious patient must be treated in accordance with medical ethics, international conventions and the laws and regulations related to patient rights. This includes the general principles of respecting the patient's autonomy and dignity, giving him or her timely information, notification of informed consent, as well as abiding by the rules of the profession integrated in every hospital written instructions on the treatment of a patient in delirium. A detailed medicolegal frame of restraint use in delirious patients is given by the Croatian Hospital Accreditation Rules, which is currently the highest existing standard for restraint use in delirious patients in ICU, as well as in the other hospital departments.