2019 participants
Yee Ying Yong
Patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) may be at increased risk of developing delirium. Delirium is the acute onset and fluctuating course of disturbance in attention, awareness and consciousness. Delirium in PD inpatients (DIPDI) may be underdiagnosed due to overlapping symptoms, including hallucinations, sleep wake disturbance and fluctuating attention. This study aimed to describe the prevalence and symptoms of DIPDI. Consented PD inpatients completed a single delirium assessment. 53 inpatient admissions with 18 delirium cases (34%) were identified. Repeating numbers and months of year backwards, three stage command, delayed recall and orientation scores were impaired in cases with delirium (p<0.05 for all). Confusion (83.3% vs. 34.3%, p<0.05), delusions (50.0% vs. 14.3%, p<0.05) and hallucinations (61.1% vs. 28.6%, p<0.05) were significantly prevalent symptoms in DIPDI. The symptoms and tests identified in this study as significantly different in patients with delirium may enable clinicians to manage DIPDI cases earlier and minimise adverse outcome.
Funding source: Newcastle University
Project supervisor: Dr Rachael Lawson