Delirium screening in the intensive care unit using emerging QEEG techniques: A pilot study

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Critical Care Medicine
• Medical Technology

Background:

• Delirium is a common yet underdiagnosed complication in intensive care units (ICUs).
• Current delirium diagnosis relies on subjective cognitive assessments by clinical staff.
• Objective diagnostic tools are needed for timely and accurate delirium management.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the efficacy of quantitative electroencephalography (QEEG) in discriminating between delirious and non-delirious ICU patients.
• To explore the potential of QEEG for objective delirium diagnosis and monitoring.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of resting electroencephalography (EEG) recordings from 5 delirious and 5 non-delirious ICU patients.
• Utilized autoregressive spectral estimation for EEG power quantification.
• Employed renormalized partial directed coherence for directed functional connectivity analysis.

Main Results:

• Delirious patients exhibited significant EEG slowing and a marked loss of directed functional connectivity.
• QEEG parameters clearly distinguished between delirious and control groups, even with a small sample size.
• Accurate patient segregation was achieved using only 3 scalp electrodes.

Conclusions:

• Emerging QEEG analysis techniques show potential for quantitative diagnosis and monitoring of delirium.
• Delirium detection is feasible with low-density EEG electrode systems.
• QEEG offers a promising objective approach to complement current subjective delirium assessments.