the.com/delirium
The brain's rough draft, written in a fever and never proofread.
means A state of acute mental confusion — marked by disordered thinking, hallucinations, or incoherent speech — often brought on by fever, illness, or substance intoxication.
from From Latin delirium, from delirare, 'to be crazy, to deviate,' which is literally 'to go off the furrow' — de- ('from, off') plus lira ('furrow, ridge between plowed rows'). The Romans borrowed a farmer's complaint about a wandering plow line and turned it into a word for a mind that can't hold its course.
- not psychosis
- fluctuates hourly, often worse at night
- top cause
- infection or drug withdrawal, not madness
- hospital rate
- up to a third of ICU patients get it
- key clue
- attention collapses before memory does