Dementia? Delirium?

Nothing much today. PBL in the morning. The topic this week is organic brain disorders - which pretty much means delirium and dementia.

delirium vs. dementia

• mode of onset: acute or subacute (Del); chronic or subacute (Dem)

• poor attention: characteristic (Del); late event (Dem)

• conscious level: often affected - may be wild fluctuations (Del); normal (Dem)

• hallucinations and misinterpretations: common (Del); late events (Dem)

• fear, agitation and aggression: common (Del); not common in the early stages (Dem)

• totally disorganised thought with palpably unreal ideas: common - often flight of ideas (Del); late feature - usually poverty of thought (Dem)

• motor signs: postural tremor, myoclonus, asterixis (Del); none, or late feature (Dem)

• speech: slurred (Del); normal (Dem)

• dysphasia: none (Del); often present (Dem)

• dysgraphia: often prominent (Del); if present, in keeping with degree of dementia (Dem)

• short and long term memomy: poor (Del); often normal until late (Dem)

Key: Del = delirium; Dem = dementia
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For some reason, I was late again today. I'm having trouble waking up - I keep ignoring my alarm clock and going back to sleep, only to wake up again 2 hours later.

It's a bit of a worry!