How to Prevent Delirium

Can delirium be prevented? And why is delirium so dangerous? These and other questions are answered below.

How can delirium be prevented?

Delirium triggered by multiple risk factors often cannot be averted. However, because delirious syndromes are so common, intensive care and monitoring of a hospitalized patient often detects delirium in its early stages and begins treatment early.

Because delirium often occurs during unplanned surgery or after taking certain medications, special attention is paid to signs of altered consciousness in these situations.

Prevention of alcohol withdrawal delirium

Alcohol withdrawal delirium can be prevented by confirming or eliminating suspicion of alcoholism through careful questioning of the affected person or his or her relatives.

Then, during treatment, either a sufficient amount of alcohol is added – although this approach is only possible for milder clinical pictures and is not carried out everywhere – or drug-assisted withdrawal treatment is initiated.

What is dangerous about delirium?

Because delirium is a qualitative disturbance of consciousness and the affected person is no longer in control of his senses, he can injure himself and others. He may misjudge the situation he is in (for example, that he is a patient in the hospital), distrust the people around him, and want to run away.

Until the cause of the delirium is determined, delirium is treated as an emergency. This means that the affected person is admitted to a hospital – if he or she is not already there. There, the cause of the delirium is investigated, followed by targeted therapy. Most deliriums regress within a few days after elimination of the cause and intensive treatment measures.

Particularly dangerous: alcoholic delirium

Alcohol delirium is a different story. If alcohol delirium is left untreated, the mortality rate is about 25 percent. Moreover, if treatment is not initiated promptly and to the fullest extent, there is a risk of serious consequential damage.

These secondary damages, Wernicke’s encephalopathy and Korsakow’s syndrome, mainly affect the brain. Important nerves only partially regress as a result – if at all – so that the consequential damage leads to death in around 20 percent of those affected. If alcohol consumption continues after delirium, there is a high probability that delirium will develop again.