Alcohol, cognitive impairment and the hard to discharge acute hospital inpatients

Abstract

Alcohol problems and alcohol-related cognitive impairment are hugely over-represented in acute hospital in-patients who are hard to discharge. Despite these problems, this group appears to have reduced morbidity, less lost bed days and a better outcome than other categories of hard to discharge patients. There is a need to resource acute hospitals to address alcohol-related morbidity in general and Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome in particular.

Neurological complications of alcohol and misuse of drugs

“…Alcohol is the primary cause in 10% of dementia cases and likely to contribute to many more 33. In an Irish acute general hospital, 25% of ‘delayed discharges’ were attributable to alcohol related brain disorders 34. Anecdotal evidence suggests a similar picture in many other countries.…”

Special Issue on Alcohol and Brain Damage

“…When the brain is damaged by alcohol, whether in early development or in later life, the distress caused is often prolonged because the damage may be permanent or very slow to recover, but the condition is not fatal as with some other complications of excessive consumption of alcohol. The finding in an Irish acute general hospital, that 25% of 'delayed discharge' was accounted for by patients with alcohol-related brain disorders (Popoola et al, 2008), is typical for many acute hospitals in the UK too.…”

Indirect detection of alcoholic strength in spirits by fluorescence method using the polyethyleneimine capped ZnO QDs

“…On the one hand, alcoholic beverage manufacturer needs to monitor alcoholic strength (AS, which refers to alcoholic content, is expressed as the volume percentage of ethanol at 20 • C by law in the European Union (EU), and wildly used in Asia and EU [6][7][8]) precisely throughout the process of fermentation as well as in the final product [4,9,10]. On the other hand, AS is a significant parameter in spirits analysis which can reflect the quality of the alcoholic beverages and has been used to judge the standard for inebriety that may cause some kind of trauma and even traffic accident [10][11][12]. Furthermore, different AS values in the spirit market means different prices [13].…”