ABBREVIATED COGNITIVE TEST FOR DELIRIUM

The cognitive test for delirium (CTD) was recently developed to identi fy delirium in an intensive care unit (ICU) setting. Stepwise discrimi nant analyses using the original validation sample indicated that a to tal score formed by summing only two of the nine content scores (visua l attention span and recognition memory for pictures) maintained good reliability (coefficient alpha=0.79) and the ability to discriminate d elirium from dementia, schizophrenia, and depression (p<0.0001) and de lirium from moderate to severe dementia (p<0.0002). This abbreviated v ersion of the CTD is more practical for use by ICU clinicians. (C) 199 7 Elsevier Science Inc.