TABLE 3.

Unique Characteristics of Delirium Contributing to the Study of Reserve

Delirium Characteristic	Application to Brain and Cognitive Reserve
Acute onset, without long prodromal phase	Facilitates establishing baseline status
	Avoids long preclinical phase of chronic processes such as Alzheimer disease
Catastrophic medical insult	May help to minimize biases in detection and diagnosis; less dependence on socioeconomic status
Clinical course with initial poor prognosis and later long-term recovery	May allow separate examination of brain (important early on) and cognitive (important during recovery) components
Preventable nature	Facilitates examination of specific reserve components that may contribute and be amenable to intervention
Large potential for recovery	Highlights clinical importance of identifying reserve components that contribute to recovery potential