Clinical features of delirium versus dementia

	Delirium	Dementia
Onset	More abrupt decline in cognitive function over hours to days, with waxing and waning course	Typically insidious, progressive decline in cognition over months to years
Attention and orientation	Impaired	Generally preserved; can be altered in later stages
Level of consciousness	Fluctuating, sometimes reduced	Normal
Speech and language	Incoherent, disorganized speech	Variable impairments in word retrieval, naming, fluency, and comprehension
Memory for recent and past events	Variable, fluctuating impairments	Often impaired for recent events; memory for remote events becomes impaired in later stages

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