Cognitive impairment in medical inpatients. II: Do physicians miss cognitive impairment?

Abstract

46% of the patients found to be cognitively impaired by the researcher had no record of cognitive impairment in the medical notes. However, 14 out of 15 of the patients with DSM IIIR delirium, and 22 out of the 26 patients with DSM IIIR dementia, were identified as cognitively impaired by the physicians. This suggests that the physicians were detecting the vast majority of patients with clinically significant cognitive impairment.