DEFINITION

• “Altered mental status” is a vague, often misleading description that encompasses a host of presentations that include changes in cognition, mood, behavior and/or level of arousal such as:
  • Coma
  • Stupor
  • Delirium and/or encephalopathy
  • Dementia or other neurocognitive disorders
  • Acute worsening of psychiatric illness
• There is a spectrum of acute brain dysfunction including coma, stupor, and delirium which include impairment of consciousness[1].
• Consciousness is further delineated into content (cognitive function mediated by cortical brain areas) and arousal (wakefulness mediated by reticular activating system)[2].