Confusion in Acute Occipital Infarcts: Why Blame Delirium?
- 1Hospital-Based Medicine, University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust, Bournemouth, GBR.
- 2General Internal Medicine, Dorset County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Dorchester, GBR.
- 3Stroke Medicine, University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust, Bournemouth, GBR.
Abstract
Acute occipital infarction is a diagnostic challenge due to overlapping symptoms with delirium, another common hospital presentation. We describe a 94-year-old patient presenting with acute confusion and visual changes on imaging. CT imaging shows bilateral occipital infarcts, resulting in a display of Anton syndrome and impacting the patient's cognition. She was treated for an acute infarct and managed appropriately under the stroke team with the relevant therapy teams. We explore the challenges in differentiating causes of delirium and offer a diagnostic aid to prompt swifter identification of occipital infarcts in the absence of obvious cause for delirium. This provides an opportunity to encourage efficient diagnosis of occipital infarcts and to improve awareness for identifying key features early.
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BibTeX
@article{plater2026confusion,
title = {{Confusion in Acute Occipital Infarcts: Why Blame Delirium?}},
author = {Chloe R Plater and Amy Green and Hakim Eluzai},
journal = {Cureus},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.7759/cureus.118289},
url = {https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42953515},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Confusion in Acute Occipital Infarcts: Why Blame Delirium?
AU - Chloe R Plater
AU - Amy Green
AU - Hakim Eluzai
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/21
JO - Cureus
DO - 10.7759/cureus.118289
UR - https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42953515
AB - Acute occipital infarction is a diagnostic challenge due to overlapping symptoms with delirium, another common hospital presentation. We describe a 94-year-old patient presenting with acute confusion and visual changes on imaging. CT imaging shows bilateral occipital infarcts, resulting in a display of Anton syndrome and impacting the patient's cognition. She was treated for an acute infarct and managed appropriately under the stroke team with the relevant therapy teams. We explore the challenges in differentiating causes of delirium and offer a diagnostic aid to prompt swifter identification of occipital infarcts in the absence of obvious cause for delirium. This provides an opportunity to encourage efficient diagnosis of occipital infarcts and to improve awareness for identifying key features early.
SN - 2168-8184
ER -