Carla Stenmanns, Helmut Frohnhofen, Henriette Louise Möllmann, Rebecca Vogt, Felix Lakomek, David Latz, Carl Neuerburg, Christoph Beyersdorf
Delirium is gaining increasing importance in the age group of older patients. Firstly, due to demographic change and secondly because the older age group is undergoing surgery more and more frequently.Delirium is not only a burden for patients and their proxies but also causes enormous costs for hospitals and ultimately for the entire population due to intensive care and prolonged hospital stays.Despite its clinical relevance, a number of validated assessment instruments and multimodal delirium prevention and treatment programs, there are still no uniform established comprehensive and practically feasible concepts for delirium risk screening, delirium screening and the resulting consequences in older patients.Given the limited pharmacological and nonpharmacological options for treating delirium, preventing the development of delirium in high-risk patients is crucial. This requires interprofessional and interdisciplinary collaboration.We present a practical guide to delirium management and delirium risk management from admission to the postoperative phase.