Maria Carolina Paulino , Hospital da Luz specialist in Internal and Intensive Medicine, concluded her doctorate degree in Medicine (in Clinical Research – Intensive Medicine), last February 20, at the Faculty of Medical Sciences / Nova Medical School (FCM/NMS), Lisbon Nova University. Her doctoral thesis, entitled “ Assessment of delirium in Intensive Medicine, importance of symptomatic temporal classification in the outcome ”, earned the unanimous approval of the jury with praise and distinction. In her doctorate research, the specialist evaluated the prevalence of delirium in intensive care units in Portugal and assessed the clinical practices associated with analgesia, sedation, and delirium . She further studied the trajectory of patients with early subsyndromal delirium and the consequences, at the level of functional and cognitive capacity, three and six months after hospital discharge. Based on the research, Maria Carolina Paulino concluded that : Delirium and subsyndromal delirium are not evaluated on a routine basis in health units in Portugal. Excessive sedation of critical patients, mostly using benzodiazepines, may contribute to a higher prevalence of delirium than detected. Subsyndromal delirium is an acute encephalopathy (cerebral dysfunction) frequent in critical patients, leading to worse outcomes during hospitalization and after hospital discharge, and which progression to delirium is associated to the worst prognostic. In the photo above , the new doctor and the jury: Luís Coelho (FCM/NMS), Pedro Póvoa (FCM/NMS and advisor of the thesis), Susana Fernandes (Faculty of Medicine, Lisbon University) and Albino Maia (FCM/NMS), and by video conference Cristina Granja (Faculty of Medicine, Porto University) and Rodrigo Serafim (Faculty of Medicine, Rio de Janeiro Federal University).
