Revue médicale de Bruxelles
-
Delirium or acute confusional state is a common neuropsychiatric syndrome in later life. Failure to recognise delirium and treat the underlying organic condition may have fatal consequences. In delirium the main aspects of cognition, thinking, perception and memory are all disordered to some degree. ⋯ Its onset is acute and its duration is brief (less than one month). Typically, the severity of the symptoms fluctuates during the daytime with peaks at night. The adequate treatment of delirium presupposes that the syndrome has been diagnosed and that its underlying causes have been identified.
-
Lower respiratory tract infections--croup, tracheo-bronchitis, bronchiolitis and pneumonia--represent one of the major causes of pediatric consultation. They occur most frequently during the first years of life, are usually not recurrent and require hospitalization in less than 2% of the cases. They are associated in time with epidemics of respiratory virus and Mycoplasma pneumoniae infections, but the role of bacteria as primary infectious agents, or as causes of superinfection is significant.