Delirium involves a rapid alternation between mental states (for example, from lethargy to agitation and back to lethargy).
Additional symptoms include:
- Disrupted or wandering attention
- Inability to think or behave with purpose
- Disorganized thinking
- Speech that doesn't make sense (incoherence)
- Inability to stop speech patterns or behaviors
- Confusion or disorientation about time or place
- Changes in feeling (sensation) and perception
- Changes in level of consciousness or awareness
- Changes in sleep patterns, drowsiness
- Changes in alertness (significantly more alert in morning, less alert at night)
- Decrease in short-term memory and recall
- Unable to remember events since the delirium began (anterograde amnesia)
- Unable to remember past events (retrograde amnesia)
- Changes in movement (for example, may be inactive or slow moving)
- Movements triggered by changes in the nervous system
Emotional or personality changes including:
- Anxiety
- Anger
- Apathy
- Depression
- Euphoria
- Irritability
Complications including:
