• frailty orthogeriatric hip fracture delirium

Delirium is an acute neuropsychiatric disorder, characterized by a fluctuating and generally reversible disturbance of attention and cognitive status.
Although it can occur in subjects of all ages, it is particularly frequent in elderly individuals.
Risk factors include premorbid conditions such as reduced autonomy, frailty, cognitive impairment, chronic pathologies, malnutrition. Acute events such as dehydration, infections, trauma, surgical interventions favor the onset of the disorder which, despite being associated with a worse prognosis both in terms of mortality and comorbidity, can often be underdiagnosed. Our observational, single center case-control study evaluated the main risk factors related to the onset of delirium in a cohort of patients undergoing surgery for hip fracture, comparing the outcome between delirious subjects and control subjects in terms of functional and motor recovery and in terms of mortality, highlighting how delirium represents an often overlooked negative prognostic factor.