Delirium in geriatric patients.

Delirium is the most common acute disorder of cognitive function in older patients. Delirium is life threatening, often under-recognized, serious, and costly. The causes are multifactorial, with old age and neurocognitive disorders as the main risk factors. Etiologies are various and multifactorial, and often related to acute medical illness, adverse drug reactions, or medical complications. To date, diagnosis is clinically based, depending on the presence or absence of certain features. In view of the multifactorial etiology, multicomponent approaches seem most promising for facing patients' needs. Pharmacological intervention, neither for prevention nor for treatment, has been proven effective unanimously. This article reviews the current clinical practice for delirium in geriatric patients, including etiology, pathophysiology, diagnosis, prognosis, treatment, prevention, and outcomes.

Frailty index predicts geriatric psychiatry inpatient mortality: a case-control study.

BACKGROUND: Many geriatric psychiatry patients suffer from complex psychiatric and medical problems and a minority of patients dies in-hospital. We assess whether a frailty index (FI) predicts inpatient mortality. METHODS: Electronic health records from 276 patients of a geriatric psychiatry department over 3 years (2015-2017) in Austria were analysed using logistic regression analysis. RESULTS: Mortality rate was 4.2%. The adjusted effect of frailty (per 0.1 FI) on mortality was odds ratio = 3.25 (95% CI = 2.29-4.79). The area under the curve of 0.81 (95% CI = 0.76-0.86) suggested acceptable predictive accuracy. CONCLUSIONS: We found that a non-negligible minority of geronto-psychiatric patients died in-hospital, which can be usefully predicted by the FI derived from routine electronic patient records.

[Diseases of the schizophrenia spectrum disorder in old age : Diagnostic and therapeutic challenges]. / Erkrankungen des schizophrenen Formenkreises im Alter : Diagnostische und therapeutische Herausforderungen.

BACKGROUND: The number of people with diseases of the schizophrenia spectrum in old age will increase significantly in the coming years. In the literature the topics of schizophrenia and delusional disorders in older and old people are inadequately represented. AIM: This article gives an overview of the most important diagnostic and differential diagnostic characteristics. Another important aspect is the pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatment options in old age. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The S3 guidelines of the German Association for Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics (DGPPN) from 2006, the guidelines of the World Federation of Societies of Biological Psychiatry (WFSBP) from 2012, 2013, 2015 and the consensus statement of the Austrian Association for Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry (ÖGPB) from 2016 formed the basic literature for this review. In addition, a targeted search in the databases PubMed, PubPsych and Cochrane Library as well as in German Journals, such as DerNervenarzt, Neuropsychiatrie, Psychiatrische Praxis and Zeitschrift für Gerontologie und Geriatrie concerning the keywords schizophrenia, delusional disorder, diagnostics, therapy and older people was carried out. RESULTS: Besides aspects on epidemiology, clinical manifestation, diagnostics, differential diagnostics and course of the illness, pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatment options are presented. CONCLUSION/DISCUSSION: In clinical practice a clear diagnostic assignment is often a challenge in older and very old people with psychotic symptoms, The necessary pharmacological treatment is available but is limited by tolerability, comorbidities and polypharmacy. Non-pharmacological treatment options have hardly been investigated.

DEL-FINE: a new tool for assessing the delirogenic properties of drugs of relevance for European pharmacotherapy.

This article presents a list of potentially delirogenic properties of drugs that are currently of relevance to drug therapy in Europe, which was created through a Delphi process including experts from professions relevant to diagnosis and treatment of delirium. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 5 (DSM 5) defines delirium as a disturbance in attention, awareness and cognition that develops over a short period of time and fluctuates. Possible causes of delirium are manifold: usually delirium is considered to develop in a multifactorial way, caused by inalterable parameters, such as advanced age and pre-existing cognitive impairment and precipitated by modifiable parameters, such as the use of certain drugs or substance withdrawal. Delirium is a serious condition with a pronounced impact on morbidity, mortality and costs to the healthcare system. Circumstances and drugs that might precipitate or worsen delirium should therefore be avoided whenever possible. A list of drugs that might have a detrimental influence on the emergence and duration of delirium has been created using the terms "delirogenity" and "delirogenic" to describe the potential of a drug or withdrawal to cause or worsen delirium. The results are novel and noteworthy, as their focus is on substances relevant to European pharmacotherapy. Furthermore, they represent a methodical consensus from a group of experts of a wide variety of professions relevant to the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of delirium, such as nursing, pharmacy, pharmacology, surgical and internal medicine, neurology, psychiatry, intensive care and medicine, with working, teaching and scientific experience in several European countries practicing both in primary and secondary care.

Reversible delirium in an advanced cancer patient.

Delirium is still one of the most common and distressing symptoms in palliative care patients. Causes and pathophysiology of this neuropsychiatric dysfunction are multifactorial. Recent studies indicate that the interaction of special triggers facilitates development of delirium. Some of them are reversible. This case report presents a reversible delirium in an advanced cancer patient and offers a list of possible delirogen medications. This list might be useful to prevent delirium, particularly in older people.

[Mortality of gerontopsychiatric inpatients in Graz, Austria-a retrospective case-control study]. / Mortalität von Patientinnen und Patienten auf einer Abteilung für Alterspsychiatrie in Graz, Österreich ­ Eine retrospektive Fall-Kontroll-Studie.

BACKGROUND: Despite the demographic development and the increasing number of psychiatric diseases in older people, there are only few scientific investigations on the characteristics of patients in gerontopsychiatry and their mortality. In this retrospective case control study patient data were examined in order to establish which features of patients who died in a department of gerontopsychiatry show differences to those of patients who were discharged. METHOD: A total of 284 patient files from the department of gerontopsychiatry and geriatric psychotherapy of the State Hospital Graz II were evaluated. Between 1 January 2015 and 31 December 2017, a total of 51 women and 91 men died (= cases) in hospital. These patients were compared with 142 sex-matched patients (control group) who were discharged during the same period of time. The evaluation was carried out using logistic regression models. RESULTS: Patients who died on the geriatric psychiatry ward were clearly older and were in a clearly poorer physical state of health than the discharged patients. The deceased patients had a 2.7-fold higher chance of an ischemic cardiac disease as well as a 2.5-fold and 3.5-fold higher chance of being referred from a nursing home or hospital, respectively. They also had a threefold higher chance for a lower functional status, a fourfold increased chance of higher C­reactive protein (CRP) values and a diagnosis of delirium compared to discharged patients. CONCLUSION: The deceased patients had a substantially poorer state of health and tended to suffer more from delirium compared to the discharged patients. Structural health policy precautions must be undertaken so that unnecessary transfers to gerontopsychiatry departments do not become necessary.

[Transdermal rivastigmine patch in outpatient services in Austria: a naturalistic study in 103 patients with Alzheimer dementia]. / Rivastigmin-Pflaster in der ambulanten Versorgung in Osterreich: eine naturalistische Studie an 103 PatientInnen mit Alzheimer Demenz.

We performed a 6-month open-label study on the use of the transdermal rivastigmine patch in clinical routine in 103 patients with Alzheimer's disease from 25 outpatient services in Austria. After baseline, safety and tolerability of the 10 cm2--rivastigmine patch was assessed at week 4, 12 and 24 in all patients. A Mini Mental State Examination was done at baseline and at week 12 and 24. Skin adherence of the patch was very good or good in 85% of study participants. Only 2.9% of patients had gastrointestinal adverse events. Local skin reactions occurred in 23% of individuals. Skin alteration were mostly mild in severity. In only 6.8% of subjects did they result in termination of treatment. At the earliest skin reactions were observed after 3 months of treatment. Cognitive functioning of patients improved comparable to the controlled trial which led to approval of the rivastigmine patch. In daily routine the safety profile of the rivastigmine patch is favourable, as is the response to treatment. Local, mostly mild skin reactions affect approximately every fifth patient, and they occur relatively late in the course of therapy. Patients and their caregivers should receive detailed information about skin reactions to omit unnecessary drop outs to treatment.

Development and Validation of a Multivariable Prediction Model for the Occurrence of Delirium in Hospitalized Gerontopsychiatry and Internal Medicine Patients.

Delirium is an acute confusion condition, which is common in elderly and often misdiagnosed in hospitalized patients. Early identification and prevention of delirium could reduce morbidity and mortality rates in those affected and reduce hospitalization costs. We have developed and validated a multivariate prediction model that predicts delirium and gives an early warning to physicians. A large set of patient electronic medical records have been used in developing the models. Classical learning algorithms have been used to develop the models and compared the results. Excellent results were obtained with the feature set and parameter settings attaining accuracy of 84%.

[Clinical diagnosis and drug therapy of elderly patients with schizophrenia : A restrospective analysis of data in a department of old age psychiatry]. / Diagnostik und medikamentöse Therapie bei schizophrenen Patienten im Alter : Eine retrospektive Analyse in einer akutversorgenden Alterspsychiatrischen Abteilung.

BACKGROUND: The objective of this study was to survey the consistency of the clinical diagnostics and the psychopharmacological treatment of schizophrenia and delusional disorders suffered by older persons. A further aspect was to record significant clinical differences and also similarities between the patient groups in care, matching with the criteria of ICD 10 for schizophrenia (F20), persistent delusional disorders (F22) and schizoaffective disorder (F25). METHODS: Retrospective analysis with reference to the manually and electronically recorded patient medical records of an acute case care ward for geriatric psychiatry and psychotherapy. RESULTS: During the assessment period 210 patients over the age of 65 years were included consecutively in the study (F20 - 64 patients, F22 - 78 patients, F25 - 64 patients, 4 patients died). Ignoring the fact that many of the patients were admitted without a diagnosis, the diagnostic classification of the referring doctor, above all those made by general practitioners, proved to be very consistent for the groups F20 and F25. In the group F22 diagnoses, however, up to almost one half of the referred patients were incorrectly admitted with an F20 diagnosis. The patients included in group F22 formed a heterogeneous group, or a melting pot for various sub-groups, with the common shared characteristic of being comprised of persons suffering from a delusional disorder. These differed from the other two groups in the following attributes: the patients were either older or very old persons, they were mostly receiving inpatient treatment for the first time and subsequently had fewer re-admissions. They also suffered more frequently from both psychiatric and somatic comorbidities; furthermore they included elderly people who had suffered from learning deficiencies or borderline intellectual deficiencies throughout their earlier lives. The patients in groups F20 and F25 differed primarily only in terms of their psychiatric medication, with significantly more mood stabilizer prescribed in the F25 group. Patients in all three groups frequently received tranquilisers during the day and sedatives in the evening, atypical antipsychotics were prescribed in the great majority of cases. CONCLUSION: The referral diagnoses of patients suffering from many years of schizophrenic type illnesses were largely in compliance with the diagnostic criteria, a much more difficult issue for the referring doctors was the allocation of patients with a first occurrence of delusional symptoms. Those patients who were allocated to the diagnostic group schizophrenia differed significantly from patients from the group with delusional disorders.

[Antipsychotic-induced tardive syndromes]. / Antipsychotikainduzierte tardive Syndrome.

Tardive dyskinesia (TD) remains a relevant clinical problem despite the increasing use of new-generation antipsychotics. Antipsychotic-induced tardive syndromes are difficult to treat and have a low tendency of remission. Therefore, prophylaxis is of utmost importance, with the responsible use of antipsychotics as a prime desideratum. With respect to managing tardive dyskinesia, discontinuing the antipsychotic, if possible, albeit not backed up by unequivocal evidence, is still the main recommendation. If this is not possible, the switch to an antipsychotic with a lower TD risk is the next-preferred option. Other symptomatic treatments have been explored, but clinical trials have provided inhomogeneous results and only very few compounds are approved for the treatment of tardive dyskinesia. This manuscript summarizes the current evidence with respect to the phenomenology, course, prevention and treatment of tardive syndromes.