| Course | NURS 751 Neurobiology and Differential Diagnosis of Mental Disorders (NURS751) |
|---|---|
| Module/Week | 3 |
| Assignment | WebEx Class Presentation 1 on Delirium Superimposed on Dementia |
| Paper type | Five-slide presentation with speaker notes to lead a ten-minute class discussion (at least 2 peer-reviewed references) |
| Length | about 790 words, 3 double-spaced pages plus title page and references. Course guide: a five-slide PowerPoint presentation to lead a short WebEx discussion on the assigned topic, 10 minutes plus 2 to 3 minutes for questions, with at least 2 peer-reviewed or evidence-based references |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| Points | 100 |
| School | Liberty University Online |
| Program | DNP |
| Where it sits | Module/Week 3 in Liberty's published NURS 751 course guide; current sections can differ |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for NURS 751 Week 3
"She's Just Worse Today": Recognizing Delirium Superimposed on Dementia, a Five-Slide Discussion for Psychiatric Nurse Practitioners
[Student Name]
School of Nursing, Liberty University
NURS 751: Neurobiology and Differential Diagnosis of Mental Disorders
WebEx Class Presentation 1
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
Slide text and speaker notes for a ten-minute group presentation; the patient on slide 1 is a composite, and the studies cited are real.
"She's Just Worse Today": Recognizing Delirium Superimposed on Dementia, a Five-Slide Discussion for Psychiatric Nurse Practitioners
Slide 1: "She's Just Worse Today"
- 82-year-old woman with moderate Alzheimer disease in assisted living
- Two days of new confusion, sleepiness, picking at her clothes
- Staff: "That's her dementia"
- Daughter: "This isn't her"
Speaker notes: Our topic is delirium superimposed on dementia. Picture this composite resident. She knows her daughter, enjoys bingo and walks with a walker. Over two days she becomes drowsy in the afternoon, agitated at night and unable to follow a conversation. The evening staff assume her dementia has progressed. Her daughter insists something is wrong. We will come back to her on each slide and ask you at the end who was right and what you would do.
Slide 2: Common and Commonly Missed
- Community: pooled prevalence 30.2% across 27 studies (Burnand et al., 2026)
- Hospital: nearly half of adults with dementia (Golden et al., 2026)
- Missed because changes are blamed on the dementia
Speaker notes: A 2026 meta-analysis found a pooled delirium prevalence of 30.2% among people with dementia living in the community, higher than clinicians tend to recognize, with variation by setting and screening tool (Burnand et al., 2026). In the hospital the figure is higher still: nearly half of hospitalized adults with dementia develop it (Golden et al., 2026). The main reason it is missed is attribution. When a person already has cognitive impairment, any change looks like more of the same. Yet delirium is a medical emergency with its own causes and its own risks, including falls, functional decline, institutionalization and death. Hypoactive delirium, in which the person becomes quiet and drowsy, is missed most often, because a sleepy resident causes no one any trouble.
Slide 3: Delirium Versus Dementia
- Onset: hours to days versus months to years
- Attention and alertness: impaired versus relatively preserved early
- Course: fluctuates through the day versus slow and steady
- Reversible when the cause is treated versus progressive
Speaker notes: The DSM-5 criteria for delirium center on a disturbance in attention and awareness that develops over a short period and fluctuates, with an additional cognitive disturbance and evidence of an underlying cause. Dementia, or major neurocognitive disorder, is a decline over months or years. The key bedside difference is attention. Our resident cannot keep her focus long enough to say the months backward, and she was alert last week but is drowsy today. That acute change in attention and alertness, against her own baseline, is delirium until proven otherwise. The comparison that matters is not the patient against normal but the patient against herself last week.
Slide 4: Screen, Then Search
- 4AT: alertness, orientation, attention, acute change; under two minutes
- Pooled sensitivity and specificity 0.88 (Tieges et al., 2021)
- Search for causes: infection, medications, retention, constipation, pain, dehydration, sleep loss
Speaker notes: The 4AT checks alertness, abbreviated orientation, attention using months of the year backward and acute change or fluctuation, and can be done without special training. Tieges et al. (2021) pooled 17 accuracy studies covering 3,702 observations; the 4AT detected 88% of delirium and correctly ruled it out in 88% of people without it. It was designed to work in people with dementia, which makes it practical in assisted living and on medical units. A positive screen starts a search for causes, often more than one. For our resident, the search found a urinary tract infection, constipation and a new sleeping pill prescribed by a covering clinician. Psychiatric nurse practitioners are often consulted for agitation in these patients, and the first question to ask is whether the agitation is delirium.
Slide 5: Treat the Cause, Involve the Family
- Treat causes; stop or reduce deliriogenic drugs
- Nonpharmacologic care first: orientation, sleep, mobility, hearing and vision aids, hydration
- Antipsychotics only for severe distress or danger, short term, lowest dose
- Ask caregivers what is normal and how they want to be involved
- Discussion: Who was right about our resident? What would you have checked first? How would you involve her daughter?
Speaker notes: Management means treating the causes and protecting the brain while it recovers: stopping the sedative, treating the infection and constipation, restoring sleep, keeping her glasses and hearing aids in, walking her and keeping her hydrated. Antipsychotics do not treat delirium and carry particular risk in dementia; they are reserved for severe distress or danger, briefly and at the lowest dose. Family caregivers are partners. In interviews with 22 caregivers of hospitalized patients with dementia, caregivers readily described acute cognitive changes but few knew the word delirium; they described recognizing changes, interpreting them and deciding how to act, and their involvement was shaped by their role, priorities, knowledge and distress (Golden et al., 2026). Our resident's daughter recognized the change first. A practical step is to ask every caregiver on admission what a normal day looks like for the patient, and to give them a simple way to tell staff when today looks different. Now let us hear from you on the three questions on the slide.
References
Burnand, A., Sampson, E. L., Walters, K., Dar, A., Kay, J., Davis, D., Vickerstaff, V., & Davies, N. (2026). The prevalence and incidence of delirium superimposed on dementia in community settings: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Alzheimer's & Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment & Disease Monitoring, 18(2), Article e70398. https://doi.org/10.1002/dad2.70398
Golden, B. P., Johnson, B., Block, L., Benson, C., Merss, K., Hansmann, K. J., Green-Harris, G., Inouye, S. K., & Gilmore-Bykovskyi, A. (2026). Dementia caregivers' preferences for involvement in delirium care during hospitalization. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1111/jgs.70602
Tieges, Z., Maclullich, A. M. J., Anand, A., Brookes, C., Cassarino, M., O'Connor, M., Ryan, D., Saller, T., Arora, R. C., Chang, Y., Agarwal, K., Taffet, G., Quinn, T., Shenkin, S. D., & Galvin, R. (2021). Diagnostic accuracy of the 4AT for delirium detection in older adults: Systematic review and meta-analysis. Age and Ageing, 50(3), 733-743. https://doi.org/10.1093/ageing/afaa224
What the NURS 751 Week 3 instructions ask
WebEx Class Presentation 1 is due in Module/Week 3 of NURS 751, the week the readings turn to neurocognitive and neurodevelopmental disorders in the DSM-5 and the course texts. The course guide asks each group to prepare five PowerPoint slides on an assigned topic and lead a short WebEx discussion: ten minutes to present, two to three minutes for questions and further discussion as time allows. At least two peer-reviewed or evidence-based references must be used. With only five slides, the presentation has to choose one clinical problem and teach it well enough that classmates can discuss it, which means the case, the evidence and the discussion questions all have to point at the same decision.
How this NURS 751 Week 3 example is built
The first slide presents a composite case: an 82-year-old woman with Alzheimer disease whose daughter reports two days of new confusion, sleepiness and pulling at her clothes, which the evening staff have attributed to her dementia. The second slide explains how often delirium occurs in dementia and why it is missed. The third compares delirium and dementia on onset, attention, consciousness and course. The fourth covers screening with the 4AT and a systematic search for causes. The fifth turns to management and the family's role and ends with three discussion questions for the class. Each slide carries speaker notes that hold the teaching.
NURS 751 Week 3 grading rubric: where the points go
Class presentations in NURS 751 are usually evaluated on accurate, relevant content for the assigned topic, organization within five slides and the time limit, use of at least two peer-reviewed or evidence-based sources cited on the slides, the quality of the questions used to lead discussion and the group's delivery. Instructors look for a focused topic rather than a survey of every neurocognitive disorder, and for discussion questions that require classmates to apply the content to a case rather than recall facts. Slides that are readable at a glance, with the detail in the notes, suit a short WebEx format. Citations should appear on the slide where a figure is used, not only on a reference slide at the end, so classmates can see where each claim comes from.
NURS 751 Week 3 help: mistakes that cost points
Groups often try to cover an entire DSM chapter in five slides and end up reading dense text for ten minutes. Pick one clinical problem inside the assigned topic, open with a case, and build each slide toward a decision a nurse practitioner would make. Keep three or four short lines per slide and put the explanation in the notes. End with discussion questions that have more than one defensible answer, so classmates have something to talk about. Rehearse with a timer, because ten minutes passes quickly when four people share the slides. Decide in advance who will answer questions on each slide, and keep one backup question ready in case the class is quiet.
Related NURS 751 sample papers
Other NURS 751 weeks
- NURS 751 Week 1: Neuro Workshop Paper
- NURS 751 Week 2: Symptom Analysis Evaluation 1
- NURS 751 Week 4: Symptom Analysis Evaluation 2
- NURS 751 Week 6: Evidence-Based Article Review
- NURS 751 Week 7: WebEx Class Presentation 3
More DNP sample papers
- NURS 718 Week 3: Case Study 1
- NURS 721 Week 3: Emotional Intelligence Paper
- NURS 732 Week 3: Reflective Exercise on Teambuilding
- NURS 750 Week 3: Spiritual Care Workshop: Part 1
NURS 751 Week 3 questions, answered
What is NURS 751 WebEx Class Presentation 1?
A five-slide group presentation in Module/Week 3, worth 100 points, leading a ten-minute WebEx discussion on neurocognitive and developmental disorders with at least two peer-reviewed references.
Where can I find a free NURS 751 Week 3 sample paper?
This page presents the complete NURS 751 Week 3 presentation on delirium superimposed on dementia, all five slides with speaker notes and the references, at no charge.
How common is delirium in people with dementia?
A 2026 meta-analysis of 27 studies found a pooled prevalence of 30.2% in community settings, and nearly half of hospitalized adults with dementia develop delirium.
How do you tell delirium from dementia?
Delirium begins acutely over hours to days, fluctuates and impairs attention and alertness, while dementia progresses over months to years with attention relatively preserved until late stages.
What is the 4AT?
A delirium screen of under two minutes covering alertness, orientation, attention and acute change; across 17 studies it identified about 88% of delirium cases and correctly cleared about 88% of others.
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