Observational studyThe lancet. Healthy longevity2025
Occurrence, associated factors, and outcomes of delirium in patients in an adult acute general medicine service in England: a 10-year longitudinal, observational study.
Observational study in The lancet. Healthy longevity, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers.
What it found
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The trial behind it
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed.
- CCL2 and CXCL2 are markers of delirium vulnerability in community dwelling older people.Age and ageing · 2026Article
- Quantitative EEG-Based Detection of Poststroke Delirium Endotypes and Their Association With Biomarkers of Inflammation.Brain and behavior · 2026Observational
- Who Is Delirium Worse For?Journal of the American Geriatrics Society · 2026Article
- Cognition After Postoperative Delirium-The Confusion Has Cleared but All Is Not Well.JAMA internal medicine · 2026Article
- Clinical performance of an ultra-brief delirium screening tool in hospitalized older adults.BMC geriatrics · 2026Article
- Association of pre- and postoperative delirium with functional status at discharge after hip fracture: findings from the Gruppo Italiano di Ortogeriatria (GIOG 2.0) study.European geriatric medicine · 2026Article
- Delirium: more than a marker of baseline vulnerability.Age and ageing · 2026Article
- Identifying delirium in older adults presenting to a primary care out-of-hours (OOH) service: a retrospective cohort study.Age and ageing · 2026Article
- Delirium and incident nursing home admission among people with and without dementia.Age and ageing · 2026Article
- Frequent in dementia, deadliest without it: delirium and mortality in hospitalised older adults.Age and ageing · 2026Article
- Magnetic resonance spectroscopy in hospitalised older people shows age and delirium-specific metabolic changes.Age and ageing · 2026Article
- Association of intraoperative dexamethasone administration with postoperative delirium and the role of hyperglycaemia: a retrospective cohort study.EClinicalMedicine · 2026Article
- Prevalence of cognitive morbidity including delirium in 51,202 emergency hospital admissions across 29 medical and surgical specialties in ORCHARD-EPR: a cross-sectional study.EClinicalMedicine · 2025Article
- Delirium is associated with incident dementia across the multimorbidity spectrum: a population-based cohort study.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- Delirium prevalence, diagnostic uncertainty and outcomes in ORCHARD-EPR: validation against prospective reference cohorts.Age and ageing · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundReliable estimates of delirium occurrence and outcomes are necessary to inform hospital services, research, and policy, but inclusive cohorts with long-term follow-up are scarce. We aimed to assess the age-specific occurrence of delirium in acute general (internal) medicine, associated factors, and 10-year outcomes stratified by age and comorbid dementia status.
methodsThis longitudinal, observational study was done at the John Radcliffe Hospital (Oxford, UK). We included consecutive adult patients aged 16 years and older in an acute general (internal) medicine service over six 8-week periods (between Sept 4, 2010, and Nov 15, 2018). Delirium was diagnosed prospectively using the Confusion Assessment Method and Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition, criteria and subcategorised as prevalent (≤48 h of admission) or incident (>48 h postadmission). Odds ratios adjusted (
findings1846 patients were admitted to acute general (internal) medicine (mean age 68·2 years [SD 20·0], age range 16-102 years), 426 (23% [95% CI 21-25]) of whom had delirium (prevalent n=290 [68%], incident n=73 [17%], both prevalent and incident n=63 [15%]), of whom 134 (31·5%) had dementia. 950 (51·5%) patients were female, 895 (48·5%) were male, and sex data were missing for one patient. Delirium increased with age, from six (2% [95% CI 1-4]) of 340 patients younger than 50 years and 31 (9% [6-13]) of 333 patients at age 50-64 years to 57 (20% [16-25]) of 281 at age 65-74 years, 245 (35% [31-38]) of 704 at age 75-89 years, and 87 (46% [39-54]) of 188 at age 90 years and older. Of the 37 patients younger than 65 years who had delirium, 28 (76%) had an underlying neurological or neuropsychiatric disorder. In those aged 65 years or older, delirium was overall associated (all p<0·001, age and sex adjusted) with dementia (
interpretationOur findings support current guidelines for routine on-admission delirium screening from age 65 years. Delirium outcomes are relatively more adverse in those aged 65-74 years without comorbid dementia in whom interventions and clinical trials should be prioritised.
fundingNational Institute for Health and Care Research and the Medical Research Council.
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