Disorganized thinking

The patient’s thought process is disorganized and incoherent. The patient may ramble, make irrelevant statements, or have illogical flow of ideas. The following conversation is an example of disorganized thinking:

Physician: “Mr. B, how are feeling today?”

Mr. B: “I’m feeling horrible today. It reminds me of the day I visited Italy when I was younger… those were the days of yesterday, today, and the future. The future is irrelevant to the past, and this makes me happy.”

Perceptual disturbances

The patient may be seeing things that aren’t their (visual hallucinations) or hearing things that no one else can hear (auditory hallucinations). For example, a delirious patient with visual hallucinations is seen picking at his blanket thinking that he is picking up bugs, when in reality, none are present.

Disorientation

The patient may not know where he is or what the date is.