Speech Pathology and Audiology Commons^™

Delirium Reduction Strategies For The Critically Ill, June Chaves, Sam Canonico, Will Cheney, Tammy Corey, Gil Fraser, Alex Kowalewski, Jen Low, Cardiac Intensive Care Unit, Haley Pelletier, Cathy Palleschi, Stephen Tyzik, Suneela Nayak, Ruth Hanselman

MaineHealth Maine Medical Center

Delirium, an acute and fluctuating disturbance of consciousness and cognition, is a common manifestation of acute brain dysfunction in critically ill patients. Patients with delirium have longer hospital stays and a lower 6-month survival rate than do patients without delirium. Preliminary research suggests that delirium may be associated with cognitive impairment that persists months to years after discharge.

In a large acute care hospital, the cardiac intensive care staff became interested in mitigating their unit’s high delirium rate of ventilated patients. At baseline, many members of the healthcare team did not believe that delirium could be prevented and the predominant …

Semantic Treatments For Word And Sentence Production Deficits In Aphasia., Mary Boyle

Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The cognitive domains of language and memory are intrinsically connected and work together during language processing. This relationship is especially apparent in the area of semantics. Several disciplines have contributed to a rich store of data about semantic organization and processing, and several semantic treatments for aphasic word and sentence production impairments have been based on these data. This article reviews the relationships between semantics and memory as they relate to word and sentence production, describes the aphasic language impairments that result from deficits in these areas, and summarizes treatment approaches that capitalize on what we have learned about these …