A Delirium Risk Stratification Tool and Interdisciplinary Rounds to Prevent Delirium in Hospitalized Older Adults

Delirium is a disturbance of attention accompanied by a change in baseline cognition that is commonly seen in acute care settings, and effects up to 80% of ICU patients. The development of delirium has adverse effects on patient outcomes and high health care costs. Of patients aged 65+ admitted to our hospital in 2019, non-delirious patients had a five-day length of stay (LOS) compared to a 10-14 days LOS in delirious patients. A five days LOS increase adds an additional $ 8,325 per patient for an extra annual cost of 15 million dollars. Additionally, delirium is often not recognized. A prior retrospective study showed that 31% of older adults seen by a Geriatrics provider were diagnosed with delirium, while only 11% were detected by nurse’s CAM screen. Given the need to improve delirium detection and management, a QI project was undertaken with a goal to recruit an interdisciplinary team, create a risk stratification tool to identify patients at substantial risk for developing delirium, and develop a delirium prevention protocol. Patients with a score of ≥ 4 were initiated on a nurse driven delirium protocol that included a delirium precaution sign and caregiver education. 6 months data has shown increased delirium detection of 33%, a reduction in 7.7 days LOS, reduced SNF discharge by 27%, and a significant LOS saving of 231 days. The results were statistically significant, p < 0.04 for LOS reduction. The cost avoidance in LOS alone were $384,615 for delirium patients.

The PREvention Program for Alzheimer’s RElated Delirium (PREPARED) cluster randomized trial: a study protocol

Background Delirium is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality among older people admitted to both acute and long-term care facilities (LTCFs). Multicomponent interventions have been shown to reduce delirium incidence in the acute care setting (30–73%) by acting on modifiable risk factors. Little work, however, has focused on using this approach to reduce delirium incidence in LTCFs. Methods The objective is to assess the effectiveness of the multicomponent PREPARED Trial intervention in reducing the following primary outcomes: incidence, severity, duration, and frequency of delirium episodes in cognitively impaired residents. This 4-year, parallel-design, cluster randomized study will involve nursing staff and residents in 45–50 LTCFs in Montreal, Canada. Participating public and private LTCFs (clusters) that provide 24-h nursing care will be assigned to either the PREPARED Trial intervention or the control (usual care) arm of the study using a covariate constrained randomization procedure. Approximately 400–600 LTC residents aged 65 and older with dementia and/or cognitive impairment will be enrolled in the study and followed for 18 weeks. Residents must be at risk of delirium, delirium-free at baseline and have resided at the facility for at least 2 weeks. Residents who are unable to communicate verbally, have a history of specific psychiatric conditions, or are receiving end-of-life care will be excluded. The PREPARED Trial intervention consists of four main components: a decision tree, an instruction manual, a training package, and a toolkit. Primary study outcomes will be assessed weekly. Functional autonomy and cognitive levels will be assessed at the beginning and end of follow-up, while information pertaining to modifiable delirium risk factors, medical consultations, and facility transfers will be collected retrospectively for the duration of the follow-up period. Primary outcomes will be reported at the level of intervention assignment. All researchers analyzing the data will be blinded to group allocation. Discussion This large-scale intervention study will contribute significantly to the development of evidence-based clinical guidelines for delirium prevention in this frail elderly population, as it will be the first to evaluate the efficacy of a multicomponent delirium prevention program translated into LTC clinical practice on a large scale. Trial registration NCT03718156, ClinicalTrials.gov.

Outcomes and measures of delirium interventional studies in palliative care to inform a core outcome set: A systematic review

Background: Trials of interventions for delirium in various patient populations report disparate outcomes and measures but little is known about those used in palliative care trials. A core outcome set promotes consistency of outcome selection and measurement. Aim: To inform core outcome set development by examining outcomes, their definitions, measures and time-points in published palliative care studies of delirium prevention or treatment delirium interventions. Design: Prospectively registered systematic review adhering to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses. Data sources: We searched six electronic databases (1980–November 2020) for original studies, three for relevant reviews and the International Clinical Trials Registry Platform for unpublished studies and ongoing trials. We included randomised, quasi-randomised and non-randomised intervention studies of pharmacological and non-pharmacological delirium prevention and/or treatment interventions. Results: From 13/3244 studies (2863 adult participants), we identified 9 delirium-specific and 13 non-delirium specific outcome domains within eight Core Outcome Measures in Effectiveness Trials (COMET) taxonomy categories. There were multiple and varied outcomes and time points in each domain. The commonest delirium specific outcome was delirium severity ( n = 7), commonly using the Memorial Delirium Assessment Scale (6/8 studies, 75%). Four studies reported delirium incidence. Non-delirium specific outcomes included mortality, agitation, adverse events, other symptoms and quality of life. Conclusion: The review identified few delirium interventions with heterogeneity in outcomes, their definition and measurement, highlighting the need for a uniform approach. Findings will inform the next stage to develop consensus for a core outcome set to inform delirium interventional palliative care research.

Hospital complications among older adults: Better processes could reduce the risk of delirium

Using observational data and variation in hospital admissions across days of the week, we examined the association between ED boarding time and development of delirium within 72 hours of admission among patients aged 65+ years admitted to an inpatient neurology ward. We exploited a natural experiment created by potentially exogenous variation in boarding time across days of the week because of competition for the neurology floor beds. Using proportional hazard models adjusting for socio-demographic and clinical characteristics in a propensity score, we examined the time to delirium onset among 858 patients: 2/3 were admitted for stroke, with the remaining admitted for another acute neurologic event. Among all patients, 81.2% had at least one delirium risk factor in addition to age. All eligible patients received delirium prevention protocols upon admission to the floor and received at least one delirium screening event. While the clinical and social-demographic characteristics of admitted patients were comparable across days of the week, patients with ED arrival on Sunday or Tuesday were more likely to have had delayed floor admission (waiting time greater than 13 hours) and delirium (adjusted HR = 1.54, 95%CI:1.37–1.75). Delayed initiation of delirium prevention protocol appeared to be associated with greater risk of delirium within the initial 72 hours of a hospital admission.

Is "behavioural disturbance" a clinically more useful concept than "delirium" for trials in intensive care medicine?

“Delirium is common in critically ill patients and is associated with adverse outcomes”: an almost universal introduction to studies of delirium in intensive care medicine. Regrettably, each element of this statement is misleading. Delirium is indeed common in the intensive care unit (ICU), but is present in so many forms (hypoactive, agitated, mixed;1 related to different aetiologies; sedation-related or not) and so dependent on study population and method of assessment as to make studies using unqualified definitions difficult to interpret. Further, this statement is commonly invoked as the rationale for trials of delirium prophylaxis or treatment, with the implicit assumptions that the association with adverse outcomes is causative, and that any negative consequences of intervening will be outweighed by the benefit of breaking this causal link. Neither of these assumptions has been proven, potentially explaining the failure of almost every trial of a pharmacological critical care delirium prevention or treatment strategy. Illustrating this point, a protocol of no sedation in mechanically ventilated patients, in comparison to primarily propofol-based standard care, resulted in more agitated delirium (incidence 20% v 7%) but more ventilator-free days. If there is to be any progress in ICU delirium management, a more sophisticated approach to diagnosis is a good place to start.