How do you distinguish between delirium and dementia?
Mnemonic: CONSCIOUS
| Delirium | Dementia | |
| Consciousness | Altered level of consciousness (ALOC). Either decreased (“Clouded” ) or hyper alert | Alert (normal) -i.e. not altered. |
| Onset | Acute or sub-acute (usually hours to days) | Chronic |
| Neuro-psychomotor | Agitated or lethargic | Usually normal |
| Speech | Slow, incoherent | Aphasic, anomic difficulty finding words |
| Course | Fluctuating (waxing and waning i.e. comes and goes) | Steady slow decline |
| Inattention? (difficulty focusing attention, e.g, being easily distractible or having difficulty keeping track of what was being said?) | Yes – attention is impaired | No – attention is usually not impaired. |
| Orientation | Disorganized thinking | Disoriented |
| Unreal auditory and visual perceptions (hallucinations) | Perceptual disturbances, may have hallucinations | Usually not present |
| Sleep-wake-cycle | Abnormal | Usually normal |
* Adapted from: http://www.icudelirium.org/terminology.html (COCOA PHSS)