Dementia United working in partnership with carers, family members and people with lived experience have created public facing resources providing advice for prevention, identifying the signs and getting help for a loved one with delirium.

• We have created a top tips guide Delirium – top tips for carers or family members for family members and carers.
• We have produced the film you can see at the top of this item starring lived experience members talking about the importance of knowing what delirium is and why it is so important to act on it.

Delirium is a common condition. It’s a sudden new confusion or worsening of a confusion or a new presentation of drowsiness. It mostly comes on as a result of an underlying medical or physiological cause.

People with delirium may experience disturbances in attention, awareness, increased confusion as well as changes in their sleep pattern and behaviour. It can come on over a couple of hours or days. It’s not a permanent illness. Delirium will usually improve once the underlying causes are treated, but sometimes it can last for a while.

Raising awareness about delirium is important in order to ensure that the person at risk or who goes on to develop delirium, gets the right care and treatment.

We hope that you will find these resources helpful, and we ask that you share them too.

You can find out more about our delirium programme here

If you have any questions, please get in touch gmhscp.dementiaunited@nhs.net