A comprehensive study of delirium and neurodegeneration was published last month in the journal JAMA Psychiatry. The researchers wanted to learn “whether delirium worsens neurodegenerative pathology that’s already in the brain, or causes decline through a separate process, or both.” Note that researchers relied on donated brains of those who suffered from neurological disorders — some of whom also had suffered delirium. (If you are interested in brain donation, Brain Support Network can help your family make those arrangements!)
An Alzforum (alzforum.org) article about this research makes several key points about how delirium can hasten neurodegeneration and how delirium should be prevented:
* “[Delirium] contributes to cognitive decline independently of Aβ, tau, Lewy bodies, or vascular disease. But combined with any of these pathologies, delirium can quadruple the rate of memory loss.”
* “Delirium hastens cognitive decline in patients who have Alzheimer’s disease and increases the risk for dementia in older people who become delirious after surgery.”
* The findings suggest “delirium and pathology interacted to accelerate decline even further.”
* The “findings are a call to take delirium more seriously.”
* A clinician not involved in the study “said this study had tremendous health implications. ‘This creates an amazing impetus for public health agents to focus on delirium prevention as a way to reduce the negative burden on brain health.’ Almost half of cases are preventable by simple, inexpensive methods, ensuring people get optimal sleep, pain medication, fluids, and exercise in the hospital, he said (Hshieh et al., 2015).”
Here’s a link to the Alzforum article:
www.alzforum.org/news/research-news/delirium-makes-its-own-mark-cognitive-decline
Delirium Makes its Own Mark on Cognitive Decline
Alzforum
03 Feb 2017
Robin