World Delirium Awareness Day 2024

World Delirium Awareness Day is an annual event held every second Wednesday of the March to raise awareness about delirium and its impact on patients, families, and healthcare systems. Delirium is a serious condition that is more prevalent in residential aged care and is generally under-recognised. Delirium is different from dementia, where delirium mainly affecting attention and awareness while dementia mainly affects memory and other cognitive function. People living with dementia are five times more likely to develop delirium.

Common symptoms include:

• Confusion and forgetfulness
• Rapid, unpredictable mood changes
• Incontinence
• Delusions
• Paranoia

Harbison has policies and procedures in place to identify what is contributing to delirium symptoms, and managing contributing factors to minimise the risk of delirium. Harbison staff undergo training to identify contributing factors, and pick up on signs and symptoms in order to escalate to the proper channels. If you would like more information on how Harbison manages delirium, please reach out to our Clinical Team.

Other resources:

• Official website
• Recognising Signs of Deterioration in a Person’s Mental State
• Dementia & Delirium
• Delirium Screen