1/10. The many faces of confusion. Timing and collateral history often hold the key to diagnosis.Recognition of a patient's state of confusion is only the beginning of a clinical odyssey that can implicate a huge spectrum of diagnostic possibilities. Among these are delirium, depression, dementia, and sensory deprivation. However, with appropriate physical examination and laboratory studies, collateral history, and clarification of time course for the symptom complex, the cause of confusion need not remain confusing.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 1keywords = complex (Clic here for more details about this article) |
2/10. delirium in the intensive care unit: are we helping the patient?The intensive care unit (ICU) represents a dynamic interaction between patient factors and interventional factors. The complexity of this situation can generate an impaired consciousness in the patients. The critical care provider is faced with deducing the etiology and treatment of delirium in the ICU. Many of the therapeutic agents that are used in the ICU may precipitate delirium. patients may also experience delirium as part of their underlying medical conditions. Withdrawal syndromes, delirium tremens in particular, are known to cause delirium. By a combination of appropriate selection of medications and an awareness of delirium as a side effect, the patient in the ICU may be treated in a manner to minimize the clouding of consciousness. An understanding of the proposed pathophysiology of various types of delirium will allow appropriate clinical measures to be taken.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 1keywords = complex (Clic here for more details about this article) |
3/10. Acute delirium induced by metoprolol.OBJECTIVE: To describe a case of delirium associated with use of metoprolol and to analyse 24 such cases including 22 cases reported to Australian Adverse Drug Reaction Advisory Committee and one case previously published (S. Ahmad, Am Fam Physician, 1991;44:1142, 1144). CASE SUMMARY: An 89 year old caucasian man with an acute coronary syndrome who had no psychiatric history and no infections, brain injury, stroke, metabolic nor neoplastic disease developed delirium after two small doses of metoprolol (25 mg). The delirium disappeared within 20 hours after metoprolol was ceased, despite continuing all other medications. THE COMBINED SERIES: Of 24 patients (12 women, mean age 71.8 years), 83% were older than 60 years. The duration of therapy before onset of delirium in 14 (58%) subjects was within one week; 23 of 24 patients were receiving therapeutic amounts of the drug (25-200 mg/day). Clinical features included confusion/disorientation in all subjects, agitation in 13, aggression in 6, visual hallucinations in 7, auditory hallucinations in 1, paranoid delusions in 3, vivid dreams in 2 and language disturbances in 3 persons. bradycardia was reported in 4 cases, hypotension in 2, fatigue/tiredness in 3, Raynaud's phenomenon in 1 and skin rash in 1 patient. DISCUSSION: The mechanism of metoprolol-induced delirium is unclear. It could be due to impairment of hepatic metabolism (especially in the ageing liver) and complex neurotransmitter-related effects on brain beta-adrenoceptors and serotonin (5-HT) receptors. CONCLUSIONS: physicians should be aware that metoprolol, a widely used beta-blocker, may rarely cause delirium, especially in the elderly population.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 1keywords = complex (Clic here for more details about this article) |
4/10. The reach of neurology.Neurologists experienced in the interpretation of disease in terms of disordered action of the nervous system should be well suited to extend their field of interest to the more complex disorders of human behavior, including hysteria, delirium, ill-defined pain syndromes, unexplained fatigue, disorders of thought, atypical depression, and delusions. To illustrate the potential of neurology in approaching the more complex disorders of behavior, several examples from clinical neurology are presented in which phenomena calling for inquiry and analysis in neurological terms are described. The categories are temporal lobe epilepsy, delirium, drug toxicity, disease processes of the cerebrum, obscure pain, dyslexia, and hysteria. Inquiry into complex disorders of behavior is inseparable from the broad subject of normal mental activity, the neural organization subserving all human thought, emotion, and action. Because of this close association, the comment on hysteria includes an introduction to the important question of whether we humans possess a free will to choose our course of behavior.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 3keywords = complex (Clic here for more details about this article) |
5/10. Consciousness and altered consciousness.The notion of consciousness in the English scientific literature denotes a global ability to consciously perform elementary and intellectual tasks, to reason, plan, judge and retrieve information as well as the awareness of these functions belonging to the self, that is, being self-aware. consciousness can also be defined as continuous awareness of the external and internal environment, of the past and the present. The meaning of consciousness is different in various languages, but it invariably includes, the conscious person is capable to learn, retrieve and use information. Disturbance or loss of consciousness in the Hungarian medical language indicates decreased alertness or arousability rather than the impairment of the complex mental ability. awareness denotes the spiritual process of perception and analysis of stimuli from the inner and external world. Alertness is a prerequisite of awareness. Clinical observations suggest that the lesions of specific structures of the brain may lead to specific malfunction of consciousness, therefore, consciousness must be the product of neural activity. "Higher functions" of human mental ability have been ascribed to the prefrontal and parietal association cortices. The paleocerebrum, limbic system and their connections have been considered to be the center of emotions, feelings, attention, motivation and autonomic functions. Recent evidence indicates that these phylogenetically ancient structures play an important role in the processes of acquiring, storing and retrieving information. The hippocampus has a key role in regulating memory, learning, emotion and motivation. Impaired consciousness in the neurological practice is classified based on tests for conscious behavior and by analyzing the following responses: 1. elementary reactions to sensory stimuli--these are impaired in hypnoid unconsciousness, 2. intellectual reactions to cognitive stimuli--these indicate the impairment of cognitive contents in non-hypnoid unconsciousness. Obviously, disturbance of elementary reactions related to alertness and disturbance of intellectual performance overlap. In conditions with reduced ability to react to or to perceive external stimuli the cognitive disturbance of consciousness cannot fully be explored.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 1keywords = complex (Clic here for more details about this article) |
6/10. A complex case of rectal neuroendocrine carcinoma with terminal delirium.BACKGROUND: A 62-year-old white male presented to our department in December 2004 with a 1-month history of intermittent, voluminous bleedings per rectum. His medical history was unremarkable apart from a single, short-lasting syncope shortly before the first bleeding episode. INVESTIGATIONS: physical examination, colonoscopy, rectal tumor biopsy and immunohistochemistry, pelvic MRI, abdominal and chest CT scans, ultrasound-directed puncture cytology, octreotide scintigraphy, biochemical analysis of tumor markers, and conventional laboratory tests. diagnosis: Locally advanced rectal neuroendocrine carcinoma with liver metastases. MANAGEMENT: Chemotherapy, CT-planned radiotherapy, antihypercalcemic therapy, terminal supportive care.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 4keywords = complex (Clic here for more details about this article) |
7/10. Epileptic attack, delirium, and a Creutzfeldt-Jakob-like syndrome during mianserin treatment.Our report concerns 2 patients who developed delirium after an epileptic attack during mianserin treatment. In both cases the EEG showed a change with periodic sharp slow complexes similar to that seen in Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. The symptoms subsided, however, and the EEG normalized after the antidepressant was discontinued, suggesting a noxious response to mianserin. If Creutzfeldt-Jakob-like changes in the EEG occur, the possible effect of antidepressant medication should be considered.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 1keywords = complex (Clic here for more details about this article) |
8/10. Post-ictal psychoses. A clinical and phenomenological description.Post-ictal psychoses have so far received little attention. The clinical details of 14 cases, diagnosed according to newly formulated criteria, were examined. Psychoses were usually precipitated by a run of seizures and occurred after a lucid interval. The seizures were partial complex with secondary generalisation in 11 cases. Catego analysis of the Present State Examination confirmed pleomorphic phenomenology. Follow-up details were available in all cases, for up to eight years. Psychoses tended to recur. Similarities with chronic epileptic psychosis are discussed, and a possible organic aetiology for post-ictal psychosis is proposed.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 1keywords = complex (Clic here for more details about this article) |
9/10. Treatment of complex partial status epilepticus unmasking acute intermittent porphyria in a patient with resected anaplastic glioma.We report a 42-year-old woman with an established complex partial seizure disorder, who presented in refractory complex partial status epilepticus, the treatment of which with lorazepam, phenytoin, carbamazepine, and pentobarbital precipitated an attack of acute intermittent porphyria (AIP). The subsequent clinical course and management with gabapentin is discussed.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 6keywords = complex (Clic here for more details about this article) |
10/10. depression, hiv dementia, delirium, posttraumatic stress disorder (or all of the above)A 29-year-old single Puerto Rican woman with AIDS was admitted to the Medical Service for pneumonia, seen by the Psychiatric Consultation Service, an eventually transferred to the Inpatient Psychiatric Unit with several possible psychiatric diagnoses including major depression, hiv dementia, delirium, and posttraumatic stress disorder. These possibly coexisting and interacting syndromes are discussed by three psychiatrists, one of whom is also a board-certified neurologist. This case illustrates the combined contribution of organic and psychological factor to complex behavioral disorders, which are increasingly common in hiv infection.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 1keywords = complex (Clic here for more details about this article) |
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