Natural language processing and detecting delirium

By its nature, delirium fluctuates. A patient might be fine at 1400 h and in a terrible state at 2200 h. The condition can only be diagnosed from outward signs, which makes it tricky to pick up patients who are intensely confused but docile and uncommunicative. There is no gold standard for diagnosis, but the most widely used tool is the Confusion Assessment Method for the ICU (CAM-ICU).