Validation of Brief Delirium Assessments in Non Critically Ill Hospitalized Patients

Delirium is often missed because physicians do not routinely screen for this diagnosis. Most delirium assessments can take up to 10 minutes to perform making them less likely to be incorporated into the routine physician assessment. Using brief (<2 minutes) and easy to use delirium assessments may ameliorate this quality of care issue. The Confusion Assessment Method for the Intensive Care Unit (CAM-ICU) possesses these characteristics, but has only been validated in mechanically and non-mechanically ventilated intensive care unit patients. As a result, it still requires validation in the non-ICU hospitalized patients. Recently, we also developed the Brief Confusion Assessment Method (B-CAM) which is a modification of the CAM-ICU. The benefit is that it takes even less time than the CAM-ICU. However, it also requires validation in hospitalized patients. As result, we propose the following and the following specific aims:

Aim #1: To validate the B-CAM in non-ICU hospitalized patients. The B-CAM will be performed by a clinical trials associate (CTA) and principal investigator in 150 non-ICU hospitalized patients that are > 65 years old. This instrument will be validated against a psychiatrist's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th. Edition Text Revision assessment as the reference standard.

Aim #2: To validate the CAM-ICU in non-ICU hospitalized patients. The CAM-ICU will be performed by a clinical trials associate (CTA) and principal investigator in approximately 150 non-ICU hospitalized patients that are > 65 years old. This instrument will be validated against a psychiatrist's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th. Edition Text Revision assessment as the reference standard.