Delirium patients benefit from supportive therapies to help them feel safe, identify the cause of their delirium, and orient them to their surroundings. Caregivers can provide this type of therapy by placing familiar objects in the patient's room, maintaining a quiet environment, and regularly reminding the patient of details like the date and location. For dementias and Alzheimer's, emotional support for both the patient and family is important, such as through psychoeducational family therapy which strengthens the family system and reduces the emotional impact of the condition. Therapists should collaborate with physicians to provide additional support around medical decisions, loss of independence, and disclosure of the disorder to loved ones.

1. Cognitive Disorders

2. Delirium
 Psychosocial therapies are difficult to use with patients who suffer from
delirium.
 A supportive therapy is indicated that involves helping the patient:
 Feel more safe and comfortable
 Identify the cause of the delirium
 Improve the ability to function
 Calm down and feel less anxious
 This type of therapy can be done by any caregiver and helps orient the
patient to their surroundings and reduce their anxiety. Some suggestions
are:
 Placing a clock and calendar in their room
 Darkening the room at night and providing natural light during the day time hours
 Maintaining a quiet, noise-free room
 Reminding them often of the day and time, where they are, and why they are there
 Placing familiar objects around them (family photographs or objects from home)

3. Dementias and Alzheimer’s disease
 Emotional support for the patient and their family is
critical in the treatment of any kind of dementia.
 Psychoeducational family therapy/Medical Family
therapy can be effective and offers extensive support
to the patient and the family. This is the same as
discussed with schizophrenia.

4.  Therapists should collaborate with the physician of the
patient. This open collaboration is important.
 One benefit of this type of collaboration is the strengthening
of a shaken family system, allowing its members to regain a
sense of choice and power about impending medical
decisions.
 Another benefit is to reduce the emotional consequences to
the family of an ongoing medical condition, in the process
perhaps reducing the clinical course of the illness. Some
serious disorders call for special therapeutic sensitivities.
 Working closely with physicians, therapists need to help
patients deal with loss of independence, physical incapacity,
rejection by a partner, and disclosure to family and others.
The family therapist can be helpful to the patient and their
family in coming to terms with their disorder.