"During the day he's completely calm, but at night he gets very agitated." "Tonight she hasn't stopped calling out for her mother, who passed away many years ago. But she's been asleep all day, and it was almost impossible to wake her up.
" These testimonies will be relatable to many relatives and caregivers of an elderly person who has to spend time in hospital. They attest to a situation that is all too common: an elderly person is hospitalized, and experiences a sudden deterioration in their health, mainly characterized by spatial and temporal disorientation and agitation. It looks like dementia , but could it be something else? Dementia or delirium? Dementia is not one specific disease, but a general term used to describe the progressive loss of cognitive functions: attention, concentration, orientation, problem-solving ability, and so on.
Eventually, it impedes an individual's autonomy and their ability to perform daily activities. While many of these symptoms overlap with those of an unexpectedly agitated elderly patient, dementia develops progressively, over a long period of time. In the case of the testimonies above, the patients may be experiencing an acute confusional state, also known as delirium .
This complex and prevalent complication of hospitalization can have a direct impact on patients' illness and mortality rates. It is therefore extremely important to prevent it, or, failing that, to establish an early diagnosis in order to treat it correctly. According to .
