Investigation of speech and language disturbances in delirium
Research type
Research Study
Full title
An investigation of speech and language disturbances in patients with acute delirium
IRAS ID
197865
Contact name
Alasdair MacLullich
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Edinburgh
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 5 months, 31 days
Research summary
Delirium is a serious neuropsychiatric syndrome mainly affecting older, hospitalised patients. It is associated with longer stay in hospital and increased risk of death. Studies have shown that despite its common occurrence and association with a bleak prognosis, delirium remains under-recognised.
A major barrier in diagnosing delirium is a poor understanding of the disorder and the clinical measures used to assess it. Also, these methods are not very useful in distinguishing delirium from dementia. Patients with delirium are known to have difficulty focusing, sustaining or shifting attention. Whilst this inattention is considered to be the key feature in delirium, other cognitive disturbances are frequently described in the literature and are included in the standard diagnostic criteria for delirium. One of the cognitive disturbances mentioned in these criteria is language dysfunction. Indeed, language problems are also represented in a widely used scale for delirium assessment (the Delirium Rating Scale Revised 98) and are mentioned as an important feature of delirium in multiple papers.
Despite the prominence of language dysfunction in delirium diagnostic criteria, rating scales, and review articles, there are very few studies that specifically investigate language dysfunction in delirium. At present it is not clear which aspects of language and speech production are affected in delirium and to what extent these problems could in turn interfere with the patient’s ability to communicate.
Therefore, this study aims to investigate speech and language functions in an exploratory study in older hospitalised patients with (1) delirium, (2) dementia or (3) no cognitive impairment. We will examine aspects of speech and language that to date have had little or no attention in the scientific literature. We will focus on abnormalities of speech production and language comprehension.
REC name
Scotland A: Adults with Incapacity only
REC reference
16/SS/0028
Date of REC Opinion
22 Apr 2016
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion