Exploring the incidence and associations between acute stroke and delirium

Delirium is a term used to describe sudden onset, fluctuating disturbance of consciousness that can accompany illness. Delirium is common in hospitalised adults and associated with increased length of stay and complications. A common, serious cause of hospitalisation is stroke. As a ‘brain disease’, we would expect delirium to accompany stroke but we know very little about how common delirium is in stroke or the factors that are associated with developing delirium. This project will build on existing work around delirium and stroke. We will collate published studies on delirium and stroke and combine results using statistical techniques (meta-analysis). We will complement the published data by looking at new information from a hospital database of delirium in stroke. We will combine raw data from available studies to assess whether certain factors (for example age, stroke severity) are associated with delirium. Our results may help predict and ultimately prevent delirium in stroke.