National Fund for Research and Development in Health

• The initiative led by the deputy director of the School of Occupational Therapy at the University of Chile, Evelyn Alvarez, presented his results showing that intensive early intervention to prevent this condition improves the quality of life of this group.

Many older adults, by various pathologies, arrive at the processing units or other intensive care health centers. Your stay in these places can bring various consequences, such as delirium, an altered state of consciousness that can lead to physical and cognitive impairment for those who suffer.

Faced with this reality, a group of researchers led by the deputy director of the School of Occupational Therapy at the University of Chile, Evelyn Alvarez, released the results of the study “Early and intensive occupational therapy in the prevention of delirium in older adults admitted to Critical Patient Units. Randomized clinical trial”, initiative funded by the National Competition VII version of Project Health Research and Development Program of CONICYT FONIS.
In order to prove that the intervention of early and intensive occupational therapy in the prevention of delirium in older adults admitted to the Critical Patient Unit, Hospital of the University of Chile could have good results, Researchers recruited them 140 patients aged less than 60 years old, admitted between April 2011 and June 2012, in need of income for monitoring, hospitalization for acute / chronic decompensated, with consent of the patient or family without the presence of delirium or cognitive impairment at admission prior to the study.

The study considered six areas of occupational therapy intervention: Standard nonpharmacological prevention, poly sensory stimulation, cognitive stimulation, training in activities of basic daily living, activation of upper extremities and family involvement.

In presenting the findings of the study, Evelyn Alvarez researcher noted that "the results showed that occupational therapy intervention effectively improves the quality of life of older adults, since there is a better functionality of them at discharge and decreases the incidence of delirium in these persons entering critical patients unit ".

Conclusions from this study as to take preventive action at the level of health services. That is one aspect that stands Sonia Lillo, Program project executive FONIS, who said that “within the guidelines of our program is to try to create evidence that serves to decision making, with the aim of improving the quality of care for people, the distribution of resources, and develop the potential of researchers”.

Source: Faculty of Medicine, University of Chile.