Great post, Shenise!
Often times, patients come in the emergency room with acute altered mental status as primary complaints or as accompanying symptoms. Several medical conditions or acute infections could cause such change in the patient’s mentation. In addition to what you discussed, I would like to add hypercarbia and/or hypoxia as a possible cause, especially if the patient has history of COPD. To rule out or confirm the diagnosis, an arterial blood gas is obtained to determine the patient’s pO2 and pCO2 levels. I have taken cared of numerous patients with COPD, and CO2 retention always comes to mind first when the patient becomes drowsy or lethargic.
Another possible cause of acute mental status change in the hospital setting is medication-induced,
Often times, patients come in the emergency room with acute altered mental status as primary complaints or as accompanying symptoms. Several medical conditions or acute infections could cause such change in the patient’s mentation. In addition to what you discussed, I would like to add hypercarbia and/or hypoxia as a possible cause, especially if the patient has history of COPD. To rule out or confirm the diagnosis, an arterial blood gas is obtained to determine the patient’s pO2 and pCO2 levels. I have taken cared of numerous patients with COPD, and CO2 retention always comes to mind first when the patient becomes drowsy or lethargic.
Another possible cause of acute mental status change in the hospital setting is medication-induced,