Hospitals fight delirium with volunteer help

[Warpy]

1. I hope more places do this

Delirium is especially bad at night, in fact it's often called "sundowner's syndrome." When the sun goes down, people who have been normal all day suddenly go off the deep end.

ICU psychosis is also a real problem, tied mostly to the lack of solid sleep due to the racket of alarms on all the machinery, blood draws at all hours, and the need for around the clock treatments. Younger people are just as susceptible to it.

It's well known that people clear pretty rapidly once they're home and in familiar surroundings.

The sad part is that nursing care used to be able to connect these people with their surroundings with conversation and kibitzing crossword puzzles and the like. Nurses are stretched so thin they barely have a chance to say hello. Clearly, this is nuts, but MBAs never see it.