A Software to Prevent Delirium (PREVEDEL) in Hospitalized Older Adults

Background Delirium, is a clinical condition characterized by acute and fluctuating deterioration of the cognitive state, generally secondary to an acute pathology. It is a common condition in hospitalized older adults and it develops in 20-30% of patients hospitalized in a general ward and up to 80% of those hospitalized in critical care units. Delirium is associated with negative outcomes in older adults, such as longer hospitalizations, higher mortality, and short and medium-term institutionalization. Randomized clinical trials have shown that delirium is preventable through non-pharmacological prevention measures, decreasing its incidence by 30 to 50%. These interventions include promoting physical activity, facilitating the use of glasses and hearing aids, cognitive stimulation, and providing frequent reorientation of time and space, among others. These measures are currently seldom applied in hospitals in Chile and around the world for various reasons some of which include the heavy workload of clinical staff, the lack of trained personnel, and, in general, the absence of systematic implementation processes. The main objective is to evaluate whether cognitive stimulation guided by PREVEDEL software prevents delirium status(full/subsyncromal delirium) in hospitalized older adults. Method/Design: randomized controlled trial, parallel groups, multicenter. Participants: patients 65 years or older who have been hospitalized for less than 48 hours in the general ward or in the intermediate care unit of 4 hospitals in Santiago, Chile. Intervention: participants in the intervention group will use a tablet with cognitive stimulation software for delirium prevention for 5 continuous days versus the control group who will use the tablet without the software. Evaluations: The incidence of delirium and subsyndromal delirium, duration, density of delirium, cognitive and functional status at discharge, adherence to prevention measures, as well as demographic variables of interest will be evaluated.