TY - CHAP M1 - Book, Section TI - Altered Mental Status and Coma A1 - Mutter, M. Kathryn A1 - Huff, J. Stephen A2 - Tintinalli, Judith E. A2 - Ma, O. John A2 - Yealy, Donald M. A2 - Meckler, Garth D. A2 - Stapczynski, J. Stephan A2 - Cline, David M. A2 - Thomas, Stephen H. Y1 - 2020 N1 - T2 - Tintinalli's Emergency Medicine: A Comprehensive Study Guide, 9e AB - Altered mental status and coma are broad clinical categories used to describe disorders of arousal and content of consciousness. Arousal behaviors include wakefulness and basic alerting. Content of consciousness includes awareness, memory, language, reasoning, spatial relationship integration, emotions, complex attention, and the myriad integration processes that make us human. Delirium, dementia, and coma may each affect consciousness, but their clinical presentations are distinct. Prompt and accurate differentiation between the three conditions is essential for appropriate management in the ED setting. Coma is characterized by failure of both arousal and content functions of consciousness. The altered states of delirium and dementia have multiple effects on neuropsychological function to varying degrees. While delirium refers to an acute state of fluctuating attention and change in cognition, dementia is a chronic disorder of deteriorating cognition, with or without behavioral disturbances. Psychiatric disorders and altered mental states may share features such as hallucinations or delusions. Some distinctions between the different states are summarized in Table 168-1. SN - PB - McGraw-Hill Education CY - New York, NY Y2 - 2024/03/28 UR - accessemergencymedicine.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?aid=1166598707 ER -