Delirium: assessment and treatment of patients with cancer. PART 2.

Delirium at the end of life may present significant ethical dilemmas in clinical practice: whether to simply treat it in order to maximise symptom relief, with the resulting side effect being palliative sedation, or to attempt to reverse delirium and risk prolonging suffering. Determining whether the delirium can be reversed involves comprehensive assessment using established tools, which may or may not provide the answer to the question posed. This article examines the evidence surrounding several assessment tools that have been suggested as effective in identifying delirium, and the consequences of various approaches to the management of delirium in a patient with a cancer diagnosis. It also considers the impact delirium may have on the health professional and those close to the patient.