Acute brain disorders, sometimes referred to as acute brain syndromes, are various psychiatric syndromes that are temporary, reversible, and diffuse in their impairment. Acute refers to the process’ reversibility. The impairment is typically caused by head injury, use of drugs, or an infection. More recently, delirium has become the preferred term to use to label the temporary in the ability to focus, sustain, or shift attention as well as a change in thinking (e.g., in memory and disorientation) or perceptual disturbances that fluctuate in severity (see Brown and Boyle 2002).
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Brown, T. M., & Boyle, M. F. (2002). The ABC of psychological medicine: Delirium. British Medical Journal, 325, 644–647.
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Levesque, R.J.R. (2011). Acute Brain Disorders. In: Levesque, R.J.R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Adolescence. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1695-2_484
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1695-2_484
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