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. 2017 Jan-Feb;58(1):19-27.
doi: 10.1016/j.psym.2016.07.004. Epub 2016 Aug 5.

Agitation, Delirium, and Cognitive Outcomes in Intracerebral Hemorrhage

Lisa J Rosenthal  1 , Brandon A Francis  2 , Jennifer L Beaumont  3 , David Cella  3 , Michael D Berman  3 , Matthew B Maas  2 , Eric M Liotta  2 , Robert Askew  4 , Andrew M Naidech  5
Affiliations

Agitation, Delirium, and Cognitive Outcomes in Intracerebral Hemorrhage

Lisa J Rosenthal et al. Psychosomatics. 2017 Jan-Feb.

Abstract

Background: Delirium predicts higher long-term cognitive morbidity. We previously identified a cohort of patients with spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage and delirium and found worse outcomes in health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in the domain of cognitive function.

Objective: We tested the hypothesis that agitation would have additional prognostic significance on later cognitive function HRQoL.

Methods: Prospective identification of 174 patients with acute intracerebral hemorrhage, measuring stroke severity, agitation, and delirium, with a standardized protocol and measures. HRQoL was assessed using the Neuro-QOL at 28 days, 3 months, and 1 year. Functional outcomes were measured with the modified Rankin Scale.

Results: Among the 81 patients with HRQoL follow-up data available, patients who had agitation and delirium had worse cognitive function HRQoL scores at 28 days (T scores for delirium with agitation 20.9 ± 7.3, delirium without agitation 30.4 ± 16.5, agitation without delirium 36.6 ± 17.5, and neither agitated nor delirious 40.3 ± 15.9; p = 0.03) and at 1 year (p = 0.006). The effect persisted in mixed models after correction for severity of neurologic injury, age, and time of assessment (p = 0.0006) and was not associated with medication use, seizures, or infection.

Conclusions: The presence of agitation with delirium in patients with intracerebral hemorrhage may predict higher risk of unfavorable cognitive outcomes up to 1 year later.

Keywords: cognition disorders; delirium; hyperkinesis; psychomotor agitation; quality of life; stroke..

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Conflict of interest statement

Disclosures:

The remaining authors have disclosed that they do not have any potential conflicts of interest. Disclosure of off-label product use is limited to the use of haloperidol for agitation in the intensive care unit, and is mentioned only to demonstrate that it did not affect study results.

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