Confusion often occurs in acute brain infarction, but its character and effective therapy have not been examined well. We divided 49 patients with acute brain infarction into the confusion group (20 patients) and the non-confusion group (29), and compared the character of each group. The confusion group showed older age (79±2 years old vs. 72±2, p=0.0075) and lower scores of Hasegawa Dementia Scale (15.3±1.8 vs. 21.2±2.1, p=0.0183) than the non-confusion group. Right hemisphere lesions, especially the front-parietal lesions, were more often observed in the confusion group. Four of 5 patients who did not receive pharmacotherapy and only 7 of 15 patients who received pharmacotherapy, recovered from confusion. On the other hand, recovery from confusion was quicker in patients with pharmacotherapy than without pharmacotherapy. Patients with confusion stayed significantly longer in the hospital (72.9±11.3 days vs. 48.9±6.2, p < 0.05) and modified Rankin Scale was significantly higher in patients without confusion (2.6±0.3 vs. 1.9±0.3, p<0.05). According to these results, patients with confusion showed poorer outcome. We need to establish effective therapies against confusion in acute brain infarction.
