BOSTON, Mass. (January 5, 2011)—Each year, up to 56 percent of all hospitalized seniors over age 65 in the United States—more than 2.5 million people—experience delirium. The condition often follows fast on the heels of surgery, anesthesia, or serious illness, complicating hospital stays and delaying patients’ return to home, family, and friends. Typically acute at onset, delirium is marked by a constellation of neuropsychiatric abnormalities, chief of which are decreased attention span and a waxing and waning state of confusion. At best, delirium reverses quickly; at worst, its symptoms trigger serious, even fatal, consequences.
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