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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2017 Mar 30.
Published in final edited form as: J Am Med Dir Assoc. 2016 Sep 16;18(1):12–18. doi: 10.1016/j.jamda.2016.07.014

Table 1.

DSM-5 and ICD-10 Diagnosis of Delirium

DSM-5 ICD-10
Attention Disturbance in ability to direct, focus, sustain, or shift and Reduced ability to focus, sustain, or shift attention.
Awareness Disturbance in awareness environmental orientation Clouding of consciousness, that is, reduced clarity of awareness of the environment
Timing/fluctuation Develops quickly (hours to days) and represents a change from baseline and fluctuates over a day Rapid onset and fluctuations of the symptoms over the course of the day.
Memory deficit An additional disturbance in cognition (eg, memory deficit, disorientation, language, visuospatial ability, or perception). Disturbance of cognition, manifest by both:

  1. impairment of immediate recall and recent memory, with relatively intact remote memory;

  2. disorientation in time, place, or person.
Psychomotor deficit None At least 1 of the following psychomotor disturbances:

  1. rapid unpredictable shifts from hypoactivity to hyperactivity;

  2. increased reaction time;

  3. increased or decreased flow of speech;

  4. enhanced startle reaction.
Sleep disturbance None Disturbance of sleep or the sleep/wake cycle, manifest by at least 1 of the following:

  1. insomnia, which in severe cases may involve total sleep loss, with or without daytime drowsiness, or reversal of the sleep/wake cycle;

  2. nocturnal worsening of symptoms;

  3. disturbing dreams and nightmares that may continue as hallucinations or illusions after awakening.
Corroborating Data There is evidence from the history, physical examination, or laboratory findings that the disturbance is a direct physiological consequence of another medical condition, substance intoxication or withdrawal, or exposure to a toxin, or is due to multiple etiologies. Objective evidence from history, physical and neurologic examination, or laboratory tests of an underlying cerebral or systemic disease (other than psychoactive substance-related) that can be presumed to be responsible for the clinical manifestations.
Other cognitive disorders Not better explained by a preexisting, established or evolving neurocognitive disorder and do not occur in the context of a severely reduced level of arousal, such as coma. None