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Background: Delirium is common among older hospitalized patients and is regarded as a negative outcome parameter. Non-pharmacological strategies have been shown to be effective in the prevention and management of delirium. This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of art therapy as part of a multicomponent intervention in preventing and managing delirium in hospitalized older patients., Methods: 138 patients at risk of developing delirium were included and received art therapy twice daily for 25 min using a mobile atelier. 107 participants were included in the final analysis (N = 53 intervention, N = 54 control). The primary outcome was the effectiveness of art therapy in preventing delirium. The secondary outcome was to determine its impact on duration of delirium in patients with existing delirium. Delirium was assessed using the Nursing delirium Screening Scale (Nu-DESC)., Results: 8 patients (7.5%) developed new onset delirium after admission, equally distributed among control and intervention group. Therefore, no valid statistical analysis could be performed. There was a statistically non-significant decrease in the duration of delirium in the intervention group (4 days, IQR 2.25-8.75) compared to the control group (7 days, IQR 5-10), Mann-Whitney-U-Test p-value = 0.26. After stratifying by dementia diagnosis on admission, the non-significant decrease in duration of delirium in the intervention group was more apparent in patients without dementia., Conclusion: Findings from this study showed that the integration of art therapy as part of a multicomponent intervention in delirium management is feasible, and can reduce duration of delirium among hospitalized older adults., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to European Geriatric Medicine Society.)

Objective: Since 1996, older patients have been treated in the Nuremberg Geriatric Day Hospital. The geriatric depression scale (GDS) is an obligatory part of the geriatric assessment at admission but its use in the clinical setting has revealed some problems. The aim of the study was to compare the GDS with the depression in old age scale (DIA-S) in terms of applicability and psychometric characteristics., Methods: As gold standard a semi-structured interview was used to record the depression criteria according to Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). Using a sample of 375 patients, sensitivity and specificity as well as positive and negative predictive values were calculated for both screening tests., Results: No clear superiority of any screening method could be proven. The sensitivity of the DIA‑S in the overall sample was higher than that of the GDS, but the specificity was much lower. In terms of predictive values, there were slight advantages for the GDS. In the sub-samples, poorer values were found in both scales for cognitively impaired or dementia patients with slightly better values for GDS., Conclusion: The DIA‑S can be used very easily in everyday clinical practice, but no advantages of this method compared to GDS could be demonstrated., (© 2021. Springer Medizin Verlag GmbH, ein Teil von Springer Nature.)