Cognition determines whether a patient can manage medications, recognize danger, and consent to care, and a change in cognition is often the first sign of acute illness. The single most consequential distinction is acute, fluctuating change — delirium, which is frequently caused by a treatable medical problem and carries serious risk — versus a chronic, progressive decline — dementia. Making that distinction, and judging the safety and capacity implications, requires nursing judgment, not a layperson's impression.
The purpose of this module is to give clinicians the skilled framework and chartable language that demonstrate cognitive assessment, delirium recognition, and the safety and capacity response were reasonable and necessary and required the skills of a licensed nurse. It is the primary home for cognitive assessment; mood lives in Psychiatric / Mental Health, the neurologic examination in Neurological, safety in Safety, and function in Function.
