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Assessing orientation to time is a standard portion of mental status testing; however, the meaning of particular types of errors (e.g., year minus 10, month plus 2, day plus 5) can be difficult to interpret, particularly in acutely ill patients. In a study of 262 hospital patients (169 inpatients; 93 outpatients) aged 65 and older at an Irish academic medical center, participants were assessed by two different clinicians in the same day. During the initial evaluation, temporal orientation was assessed. The second evaluation was more thorough, consisting of a detailed historical review to identify cognitive impairment (delirium, dementia, or both) according to published criteria.
Independent predictors of cognitive impairment were not knowing…