DEVELOPMENT OF CONFUSION IN THE HOSPITALIZED ELDERLY.
Contributors: University Of Illinois At Chicago, Health Sciences Center.
Published: 1987
Number of pages: 222
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: The purpose of this study was to describe, by means of an exploratory field study, the significant factors associated with the development of confusion in elderly hospitalized medical patients. Therefore, systematic and controlled observations were made of patients in predicaments of illness considered important in the development of confusion. Information obtained from these observations was examined within the framework of Levine's Conservation Model (1967a) as applied to an information-processing model of cognition (Newell and Simon, 1972). The focus of this examination was to determine the similarities and differences between those individuals who did and did not develop confusion.

Slightly more than one-third, 38% (n = 27), of the 71 patients who comprised the sample developed confusion within 6 days of hospitalization. Of the patients who developed confusion, 70%, (n = 19), were confused by the second day of hospitalization, and an additional 15%, (n = 4), by the fourth day. Thus, 23 of the 27 confused patients (85%) had developed confusion by the fourth day of hospitalization.

Of the 71 subjects, 100% were accurately classified as either confused or non-confused on the basis of 13 variables; variables that represented the four conservation principles and were more important in combination than separately. These variables included: mean arterial pressure, heart rate, temperature, serum albumin, serum potassium and creatinine, medications, nurse ratings of confusion, self-reported depression, physical independence, education, temperospatial references, and race. Thus, more precise information about the development of confusion in elderly patients was obtained; information for directing nursing practice. As a result, more effective methods of assessing, detecting, preventing, and intervening in cases of confusion should be acquired.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 48-08, Section: B, page: 2261.

Thesis (PH.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT CHICAGO, HEALTH SCIENCES CENTER, 1987.

School code: 0806.