Delirium
Clinical teaching and practical ideas for your next study session.
Delirium and Refusal of Surgery: Who Can Authorize Treatment?
When delirium prevents a patient from weighing a time-critical operation, a capacity finding is not consent. Learn how best-interests reasoning, prior wishes, legal proxies, urgency, and restraint shape the next step in England and Wales.
Oxybutynin and Delirium: Linking Muscarinic Blockade to Acetylcholine
A recent oxybutynin prescription points to reduced central cholinergic signaling—the classic delirium hypothesis. For boards, connect receptor blockade to acetylcholine; in practice, treat the timeline as a reason to review medications, not proof of a single cause.
Alcohol Withdrawal Hallucinations: Hallucinosis or Delirium?
Hallucinations after alcohol cessation do not by themselves establish withdrawal delirium. This case discussion uses serial attention, awareness, arousal, and symptom fluctuation to distinguish alcohol-induced hallucinosis from delirium—and to guide monitoring, assessment tools, and safe adjunctive antipsychotic use.
When Baseline Cognition Misleads: Spotting Delirium on a Psychiatry SAQ
A focused guide to distinguishing delirium from preexisting neurocognitive disorder—and turning a psychiatry short-answer case into retrieval practice that improves clinical reasoning.
Delirium Superimposed on Mild Neurocognitive Disorder: Three Clues That Change the Diagnosis
Learn how acute onset, impaired attention, and changes in arousal help distinguish delirium superimposed on a preexisting neurocognitive disorder from baseline cognitive decline.