Palliative medicine for cancer patients explained
Patients undergoing cancer treatments often use palliative medicine to cope with nausea, fatigue and other bothersome symptoms.
Sep 19, 2024
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Patients undergoing cancer treatments often use palliative medicine to cope with nausea, fatigue and other bothersome symptoms.
Sep 19, 2024
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Treatment with a combination of haloperidol and lorazepam reduced symptoms of agitated delirium, a common end-of-life condition for patients with advanced cancers, compared with haloperidol alone, according to a new study ...
Sep 15, 2024
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Delirium is a sudden onset and temporary state of disturbed consciousness or cognition, occurring due to underlying medical issues like fever or alcohol withdrawal. It is most common among older hospitalized adults aged 75 ...
Aug 29, 2024
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In-hospital delirium among older adults hospitalized for COVID-19 is associated with increased functional disability and cognitive impairment postdischarge, according to a study published online July 2 in JAMA Network Open.
Jul 11, 2024
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General anesthesia makes it possible for millions of patients each year to undergo lifesaving surgeries while unconscious and free of pain. But the 176-year-old medical staple uses powerful drugs that have stoked fears of ...
Jun 10, 2024
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In November 2022, Abdullah Darwich, a nonverbal autistic 19-year-old left his home in Mississauga, Ont. He made his way to a pile of leaves, which he began playing in, dressed only in his underwear. A worried neighbor made ...
May 22, 2024
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Caregivers involved in a world-first pilot study have endorsed an online tool for assessing delirium which gives them a key role in the management of loved ones affected by the confused mental state.
Apr 22, 2024
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A movement to discredit a controversial medical diagnosis is being bolstered by a new study out of McGill University. Excited delirium describes a state of agitation, aggression, and distress and has become a common defense ...
Apr 18, 2024
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University of Queensland researchers have found older patients who experience delirium are three times more likely to develop dementia. Professor Ruth Hubbard from UQ's Center for Health Services Research (CHSR) said the ...
Mar 28, 2024
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Up to 40% of older surgery patients develop postoperative delirium, a syndrome of confusion that typically occurs in the first few days after surgery. Postoperative delirium is associated with longer hospitalizations, significant ...
Sep 28, 2023
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Delirium or acute confusional state is a common and severe neuropsychiatric syndrome with core features of acute onset and fluctuating course, attentional deficits and generalized severe disorganization of behavior. It typically involves other cognitive deficits, changes in arousal (hyperactive, hypoactive, or mixed), perceptual deficits, altered sleep-wake cycle, and psychotic features such as hallucinations and delusions. It is often caused by a disease process outside the brain, such as infection (urinary tract infection, pneumonia) or drug effects, particularly anticholinergics or other CNS depressants (benzodiazepines and opioids). Although hallucinations and delusions are sometimes present, these are not required for the diagnosis, and the symptoms of delirium are clinically distinct from those induced by psychosis or hallucinogens (with the exception of deliriants.)
Delirium itself is not a disease, but rather a clinical syndrome (a set of symptoms), which result from an underlying disease or new problem with mentation. Like its components (inability to focus attention, mental confusion and various impairments in awareness and temporal and spatial orientation), delirium is simply the common symptomatic manifestation of early brain or mental dysfunction (for any reason). Without careful assessment, delirium can easily be confused with a number of psychiatric disorders because many of the signs and symptoms are conditions present in dementia, depression, and psychosis.
Treatment of delirium requires treatment of the underlying causes. In some cases, temporary or palliative or symptomatic treatments are used to comfort patients or to allow better patient management (for example, a patient who, without understanding, is trying to pull out a ventilation tube that is required for survival). Delirium is probably the single most common acute disorder affecting adults in general hospitals. It affects 10-20% of all hospitalized adults, and 30-40% of elderly hospitalized patients and up to 80% of ICU patients.
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