Nursing Assignment: Effective Interventions for Delirium Prevention

This report investigates effective interventions for preventing and reducing delirium in acute hospital settings. The introduction defines delirium and highlights its impact, followed by a detailed search strategy that includes database searches and the development of search terms. The main body provides a summary of the findings from selected articles, including study aims, methodologies, key findings, and levels of evidence. The report then recommends best practices for delirium prevention, encompassing problem introduction, critical analysis of research, summarization of key findings, and recommendations for practice. Interventions discussed include paying attention to risk factors, utilizing the Hospital Elder-Life Program, providing counseling, encouraging early physical activities, using pleasant scents, ensuring a proper sleep-wake cycle, and providing sensory support. The conclusion summarizes the importance of these interventions in improving patient outcomes. The report emphasizes the need for a multi-faceted approach to prevent and manage delirium in hospitalized patients.

Running head: EFFECTIVE DELIRIUM PREVENTIVE & REDUCING INTERVENTIONS 1
Effective Delirium Preventive & Reducing Interventions
Name
Institutional Affiliation

EFFECTIVE DELIRIUM PREVENTIVE & REDUCING INTERVENTIONS 2
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................4
Search Plan Development................................................................................................................4
Conducting Search...........................................................................................................................4
Extraction/Summary Table..............................................................................................................5
Recommendations for Practice........................................................................................................8
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................15
References......................................................................................................................................16

EFFECTIVE DELIRIUM PREVENTIVE & REDUCING INTERVENTIONS 3
INTRODUCTION
Delirium refers to a complex mental disability that facilitate confused thinking and
decreased awareness of an atmosphere. It can be considered as an abrupt change in human brain
which is responsible for causing emotional disruption as well as mental confusion. However, the
condition of delirium make an individual to face difficulty to sleep, pay attention, think, and
remember and many more. Moreover, the occurrence of this mental disability take place due to
alcohol withdrawal, after surgery or dementia. The present report is based on delirium including
effective interventions for preventing and reduce incidence of delirium in the acute hospital

EFFECTIVE DELIRIUM PREVENTIVE & REDUCING INTERVENTIONS 4
setting. This assignment will focus on search plan to locate relevant resources and develop a
search strategy utilized in context of literature. It will also include summary of each paper
outlining several aspects including purpose or aim of the study, sample, design, key findings and
level of evidence. The recommendations on best practices in order to prevent the problem of
delirium is acute hospital settings are described here. It involves the selected problem,
methodology, findings and suggestions to prevent delirium.
MAIN BODY
Search Plan Development
Search strategy

EFFECTIVE DELIRIUM PREVENTIVE & REDUCING INTERVENTIONS 5
Description of
concepts
Similar search terms, using “phrase searching”,
truncation (*), wild cards (?), alternate words and
alternate spellings etc.
Concept 1 Delirium It is known as a mental disorder which occurs due to
several reasons including alcohol withdrawal, exposure to
toxins etc. It has a similar terms of mental disability in
which confused thinking and reduced awareness of
external environment take place.
Concept 2 Preventing
interventions
This can be considered as effective clinical actions that
are carried out by care practitioners to prevent occurrence
of delirium. The similar term of intervention is actions or
step to improve specific medical disorder.
Conducting Search
Databases searched:

EFFECTIVE DELIRIUM PREVENTIVE & REDUCING INTERVENTIONS 6
Articles The articles related to delirium and it causes that are require to
prevent for reduce risk of occurring the given mental health issue.
Books and journals The books and journals are reviewed online that to determine
effective approaches which are helpful to prevent delirium in
people.
Websites Online websites has been reviews in respect of analyzing actual
different types of cause that are responsible for occurring of
symptoms related to delirium.
Extraction/Summary Table

EFFECTIVE DELIRIUM PREVENTIVE & REDUCING INTERVENTIONS 7
Article Purpose/
Aim of
the study
Is the
purpose
relevant
to my
question?
Sample –
Who was
included
in the
study
Consider:
Does the
sample
represent
the target
populatio
n in my
question?
Design
Consider:
Is the
design
relevant?
Method
How was
the
research
conducted
? Was
there a
potential
for bias?
Findings
What
were the
key
findings?
Are the
findings
relevant
for my
question?
Level of
Evidence
Is the
research
high level
evidence
or just
opinion?
Addition
al
notes
Was
ethics
review
undertake
n?
Is it
primary
or
secondary
research?

EFFECTIVE DELIRIUM PREVENTIVE & REDUCING INTERVENTIONS 8
Malik,
Harlan &
Cobb
(2016).
The aim
to
examine
the ability
if nursing
staff to
detect
delirium
and apply
early
interventi
on to
reduce
adverse
events
linked
with
delirium.
Nursing
staff
A
descriptiv
e study
Explorati
on of
relations
among
cause and
effect
between
cognitive
screening,
knowledg
e
assessmen
t and
interventi
ons.
The
multiple
interventi
ons can
be applied
according
to obvious
symptoms
of
patients.
High level
evidence
Primary
research

EFFECTIVE DELIRIUM PREVENTIVE & REDUCING INTERVENTIONS 9
Hshieh et
al. (2018)
To
summariz
e the
current
state of an
evidence
regarding
help and
highlight
its
effectiven
ess along
with cost
savings.
Care
practition
ers and
patients
with
delirium.
RCT Use of
combinati
on of
controlled
vocabular
y and
keyword
terms.
Help can
be
considere
d as an
effective
standards
model for
improving
the
effectiven
ess as
well as
quality of
hospital
care for
people
with
delirium.
Just an
opinion
Primary
research
from the
above
report, it
has been
concluded
delirium
can be
described
as
Oberai et
al. (2018).
To
analyze
the
effectiven
Nursing
staff and
patients
with hip
A
controlled
trails
An
observatio
nal study
Early
engageme
nt of
multidisci
High level
evidence
Primary
research

EFFECTIVE DELIRIUM PREVENTIVE & REDUCING INTERVENTIONS 10
ess of
multicom
ponent
interventi
ons on
incidence
of
delirium
in
hospitaliz
ed older
patients
with hip
fracture.
fracture. plinary
staff is
helpful to
address
risk
factors of
delirium.
Recommendations for Practice
a. Problem Introduction and Topic
Delirium can be described as a condition of an individual facing mental disability of
confused thinking and decreased awareness about atmosphere. It includes the number of factors
that are responsible for occurrence of delirium such as severe or chronic illness, changes in
metabolic balance, infection, surgery, medication and alcohol withdrawal or intoxication.

EFFECTIVE DELIRIUM PREVENTIVE & REDUCING INTERVENTIONS 11
However, delirium can be divided into several categorize such as hyperactive, hypoactive and
mixed delirium. Initially, hyperactive delirium can be easily determined because it consist
restlessness, rapid mood changes or hallucinations, agitation and refusal to cooperate with care
In addition to this, hypoactive delirium involve decreased motor activities, abnormal drowsiness,
sluggishness or seeming to be in a daze. Moreover, mixed delirium consist both condition i.e.,
hypoactive and hyperactive signs & symptoms as a person can quickly switch back and forth
from hyperactive to hypoactive states. It is observed that different causes were there which create
the problem of mental disability known as delirium (Oberai, Laver, Crotty, Killington &
Jaarsma, 2018).
Delirium Causes
There are different causes develop problem of delirium due to which confused thinking
and reduced awareness of surrounded environment. Firstly, it consist the reason of provided
several medications or condition of drug withdrawal or intoxication. Secondly, when a person
used to prefer alcohol or drug withdrawal which can create delirium situation for them. Thirdly,
several medical circumstances including heart attack, worsening lung or liver disease, stroke and
injury from fall can also generate relevant symptoms (Oberai et al., 2018).
However, the problem of occurring impairments in metabolic activities such as low
calcium or sodium that can create confused thinking condition of a person. In addition to this, it
involves the severe, chronic or terminal illness and acute infection & fever that occurs specially
in kids. Meanwhile, certain symptoms like pneumonia or flu and urinary tract infections are

EFFECTIVE DELIRIUM PREVENTIVE & REDUCING INTERVENTIONS 12
responsible for creating signs relevant to mental problem of delirium. Moreover, it consist the
exposure of a person towards toxin including certain chemical compounds such as cyanide,
carbon monoxide and other poisonous elements (Oberai et al., 2018). Furthermore, it is observed
that dehydration or malnutrition and severe emotional distress or sleep deprivation can develop
psychological issue of delirium. It also consist the factor of pain and surgery or other medical
process which involves anesthesia also results into related symptoms of selected mental health
problem.
Delirium Prevention and Treatment
Preventing delirium implies utilizing interventions which can effectively reduce delirium
incidents risks, and eventually, trigger improvement in the clinical outcomes amongst geriatric
patients displaying risk factors which might act as foundation for manifestation of delirium. A
few clinical studies are published on delirium prevention, nonetheless, the three primary research
articles above have identified some effective preventive measures to delirium patients as
discussed below:
The first intervention is to pay attention to factors making grounds for manifestation of
delirium in patients exposed to increasing delirium risks like old patient. This will prevent
delirium incidence and will eventually enhance the clinical outcomes of the elderly patients.
Paying attention to such predisposition risk factors as immobility; utilizing physical restraints,
and bowl catheter; psychedelics, malnutrition, certain drugs types, associated illness, dehydration
will also reduce delirium manifestation (Malik, Harlan & Cobb, 2016). Further, old age,