Every year, more than 6 million people around the globe die of stroke-related complications, many of which follow an intensive care unit (ICU) admission. Because of the highly comorbid presence of delirium following acute stroke, most ICU-based delirium research excludes patients with stroke. This systematic omission has obscured the understanding of delirium’s prevalence, risk factors, and consequences in critically ill patients recovering from a stroke, limiting the development of prevention and treatment strategies for these patients.

These investigators examined delirium’s prevalence, severity, and associations with short-term outcomes among adults admitted to a neurological ICU for stroke (ie, acute ischemic stroke [AIS], intracerebral hemorrhage [ICH], and aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage [aSAH]).

This prospective, observational study of adults admitted to a neurocritical care unit within the previous 48 hours for a stroke excluded prisoners, non-English speakers, patients with hearing or visual impairments, those with traumatic ICH diagnoses, and those with imminent care-withdrawal plans....

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