Alcoholic delirium - causes and symptoms Alcoholic delirium

This disease has several types:

• alcoholic;
• due to somatic diseases of the body;
• due to infectious diseases;
• due to poisoning with toxic substances of a different nature.

Causes

"Delirium tremens" develops with frequent alcohol consumption. Many other factors can also play a role.

Delirium tremens occurs due to prolonged binge drinking that does not stop for weeks or months. Or, conversely, a sharp withdrawal from alcohol due to a serious condition of the body or forced withdrawal from regular abuse. Delirium may occur when the body is intoxicated with harmful substances or with severe infections.

Symptoms

Alcoholic delirium may occur after stopping drinking alcohol not immediately, but after a day or even more.

But the precursors of psychosis will manifest themselves in sleep disturbances combined with nightmares and visual hallucinations before bedtime. The person suffers from insomnia or painful hallucinatory dreams during sleep. He becomes anxious, irritable. He suffers from increased sweating, the face and conjunctiva become hyperemic (red), tachycardia (rapid heartbeat), arterial hypertension (increased blood pressure), hyperthermia of the body are also observed. Speech disorders in the form of unclear expression of one's thoughts are possible.

The direct manifestation of delirium is visual hallucinations of a frightening, unpleasant nature, due to which a person becomes fearful or aggressive. Most often, patients with alcoholic delirium see spiders, rats, mice, snakes, insects in front of them. Some see devils and various frightening monsters in their imagination, and then can partially describe them, draw them. The patient loses orientation in the area, in time. He tries to protect himself or run away from people, animals, monsters, insects attacking him, and sometimes he himself can attack in self-defense from hallucinatory images. Auditory hallucinations of a frightening nature in the form of threats or screams are also possible.

The patient's condition worsens in the evening or at night, after anesthesia or taking medications. In the morning, the patient calms down, and the manifestations of psychosis decrease. In a state of "delirium tremens" a person can jump out of a window, be dangerous to people around him and medical personnel. This condition in people can last from several hours to several days, alternating with an increase or decrease in symptoms.

Alcohol delirium is dangerous to human health. This disease is manifested by a sharp drop in blood pressure, as well as severe heart rhythm disturbances.

Diagnostics

The assessment of the onset and development of alcoholic delirium is carried out based on the first signs of clinical manifestation of psychosis directly by medical personnel in hospitals, psychiatric hospitals. If delirium begins to appear at home, then knowing that the person had a long binge or abrupt withdrawal from alcohol, noticing irritability, aggressiveness, you can almost accurately determine this condition and call emergency psychiatric care.

Treatment

Alcoholic delirium is a condition that threatens the patient's life, which requires immediate treatment. There are a number of principles for restoring the condition of a person in delirious psychosis.

• Combating psychomotor agitation.
• Elimination of insomnia (during alcoholic delirium, patients practically do not sleep, which aggravates the course of psychosis).

The main groups of drugs for stopping alcoholic delirium:

• tranquilizers;
• neuroleptics;
• sedatives;
• antihistamines;
• antiarrhythmics;
• saline solutions.

Treatment is carried out in specialized psychiatric hospitals and under the supervision of a psychiatrist or narcologist. If necessary, the patient can be transferred to the intensive care unit or intensive care unit.