Resources and helplines

Good information about delirium is scattered, and search results can be unhelpful or wrong. The websites and booklets below are carefully chosen and free to read. Most of the services and phone numbers on this page are UK-based. Outside the UK, follow local health-service guidance and look for equivalent national or regional organisations. Because services change, this page does not attempt a worldwide directory.

Reading about delirium

Start with these UK health-service pages. They are short, checked by clinicians, and free of advertising. Readers elsewhere may still find them useful, but should follow local guidance for care.

• The NHS website covers delirium under the heading “sudden confusion”, including when to get urgent medical help.
• NHS inform is the Scottish health information service. Its delirium page covers causes, treatment, recovery and how to support someone with delirium.
• There is a longer delirium page on the Royal College of Psychiatrists site, including what may happen after an episode.

One booklet is worth printing. The Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network, known as SIGN, publishes a free booklet called Delirium: a booklet for people who have experienced delirium, and for their carers. It runs to about twenty pages and is based on the national clinical guideline, with short accounts from people who have had delirium themselves. Find it on the SIGN site, or search for “SIGN delirium booklet”. A paper copy is easy to hand to a relative who does not use the internet.

If dementia is part of the picture

Delirium is much more common in people with dementia, and the dementia charities know the condition well. The organisations below are UK-based. You do not need a dementia diagnosis in the family to phone them. Outside the UK, look for an equivalent dementia organisation in your country. These helplines provide information and support; they are not emergency services.

Particular situations

Intensive care. This website focuses mainly on delirium in older people outside intensive care, although much of the information here is also relevant in an ICU. ICUsteps is the UK charity for intensive care patients and their relatives. Its guide to intensive care has a section for families and a separate information sheet on delirium. For more specific ICU delirium information, see Vanderbilt’s ICU Delirium information for patients and families, which covers delirium in intensive care, ventilators, how families can help, and recovery afterwards. This is a US resource, so follow advice from the person’s own clinical team and local health-service guidance.

Children and young people. This website does not cover paediatric delirium in babies, children or young people. Leicester’s Hospitals has a short NHS leaflet for parents and carers, Understanding delirium in children during and after hospital care. Vanderbilt also has information about delirium and recovery in paediatric intensive care. The Vanderbilt page is a US resource, so follow advice from your child’s own clinical team and local health-service guidance.

The end of life. Marie Curie has a page on delirium when someone has a terminal illness, and a free UK support line on 0800 090 2309 for anyone affected by terminal illness, family included. If the person is known to be dying or has an agreed palliative-care plan, contact their palliative-care, hospice or primary-care team urgently and follow that plan. Priorities and treatments may differ at the end of life.

Other languages. Dementia United, an NHS programme in Greater Manchester, has translated its short delirium leaflet into sixteen languages, with audio versions and short films. ICUsteps publishes translated intensive care information too. These translations may help anywhere, although service details may be specific to the UK.

Someone to talk to

Not everything needs a website. The services below are UK-based. Outside the UK, look for an equivalent carers’ or older people’s organisation in your country.

A carer’s assessment is a UK local-council review of the support you need as a carer. Outside the UK, ask local health or social-care services what support is available. If you are looking after someone during or after delirium, you count as a carer, whether or not you would use that word about yourself.

Phone numbers change, and so do opening hours. If a number on this page does not connect, search for the organisation by name; all of them are easy to find.

What these can and cannot do

Every website and helpline on this page has the same limit: they give general information. None of them can tell you what is wrong with your mother, whether her medicines are right, or when she will recover. Advice about an individual person can only come from clinicians who can examine them and take responsibility for the plan.

While your loved one is in hospital, that means the ward team. Ask to speak to the nurse in charge, or ask when the doctors will next be on the ward. After discharge, it means their own doctor. Delirium should be mentioned in the hospital discharge letter, and a review after an episode is worth asking for even when nothing seems wrong. For a sudden new change at home, get medical help now. Contact the urgent or emergency medical service where the person is. In England, call 999 or go to A&E; in Scotland, contact the GP urgently if open, otherwise phone NHS 24 on 111. Outside the UK, follow local health-service guidance. If the person is hard to wake or very unwell, call the local emergency number immediately (999 in the UK).

When you do get time with the team, some questions tend to produce useful answers:

• Is there a plan for the delirium, and can you talk me through it?
• Have the possible triggers been reviewed: infection, pain, constipation, dehydration, medication side effects?
• Has anyone been through the medication list for drugs that can worsen confusion?
• What is being done about sleep, eating and drinking, glasses and hearing aids, and getting moving again?
• Who is coordinating all of this, and how do I reach them?

Judging what you find online

A few habits protect you. Check who runs the site: health services and established charities are accountable for what they publish, and anonymous pages and supplement sellers are not. Check the date, because advice on delirium has changed over the years. Treat forums as what they are, other families’ experiences rather than advice for yours.

And a word about AI chatbots, since many people now ask them medical questions. The answers sound confident and are sometimes wrong, and the tool has no way of examining your relative or noticing its own mistakes. If you use one, use it to help you understand unfamiliar terms, and check anything that matters against the sites on this page.

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