RISE UP TO THE CHALLENGE

DECLARED 2023 is set to become one of the best delirium conferences thus far, with a number of the most passionate International and Australasian speakers lined up to present keynotes, symposia and join live panels. 

Associate Professor Esther Oh

Keynote: Translating Knowledge into Action: Creating a Health Ecosystem to Advance Delirium Prevention and Care

Esther Oh, Sarah Miller Coulson Human Aging Project Scholar, is an Associate Professor in the Division of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology, Department of Medicine with appointments in the Departments of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Pathology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She is also the President of the American Delirium Society.
Dr. Oh’s research, clinical work and educational activities are grounded in advancing delirium prevention and care in various clinical settings.
Dr. Oh’s work includes the development of fluid and biometric biomarkers for early detection of AD and to predict postoperative delirium, delirium and cognitive changes after surgery; long-term cognitive changes associated with COVID-19; sensory changes associated with AD; and cognitive impairment in the context of multimorbidities and polypharmacy

Dr Leanne Boehm

Pre-Conference Workshop: Leading, Implementing, and Sustaining an Effective Delirium Quality Improvement Project
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Dr. Boehm's research aims to eliminate delirium, oversedation and immobilization in intensive care, and maximize the quality of survivorship for patients and family members following critical illness. She has worked extensively on reducing the prevalence of ICU delirium and post-intensive care syndrome (PICS) through implementation of the ABCDEF bundle, ICU peer support groups, and ICU recovery clinics. She has advanced training in implementation science and quality improvement. Her current research is evaluating the feasibility and efficacy of telehealth ICU recovery care services. Dr. Boehm is an investigator with the Vanderbilt's Center for Critical Illness, Brain Dysfunction and Survivorship (www.icudelirium.org) and faculty with the Vanderbilt Center for Clinical Quality and Implementation Research

Brenda Pun

Pre-Conference Workshop: Leading, Implementing, and Sustaining an Effective Delirium Quality Improvement Project

Brenda Pun, DNP, RN is an advanced practice nurse with a special interest in critical care, who serves as the Director of Data Quality at the Vanderbilt Critical Illness, Brain Dysfunction, and Survivorship (CIBS) Center.  Brenda received a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Wheeling Jesuit University, a master’s degree from Vanderbilt University School of Nursing, and a Doctor of Nursing Practice degree from University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. She is involved in a variety of research projects that focus on improving the care and outcomes of critically ill patients and their families. In addition, she is dedicated to helping advance the understanding on how to best translate and implement new evidence into bedside care practices

Professor Daniel Davis

Chief Marketing Officer

Professor Davis is a Wellcome Trust intermediate clinical fellow and honorary consultant in geriatric medicine. He qualified from the University of Edinburgh in 2003 and undertook postgraduate training in Oxford and London. His PhD was obtained from the University of Cambridge.
At UCLH, he is interested in improving the care of older people with cognitive impairment in the hospital setting, with specific expertise in the diagnosis and management of delirium.
Professor Davis's primary interest is the relationship between delirium and acute illness and trajectories of cognitive decline in large population-representative studies. He seeks to understand these relationships in their broadest sense, from the pathophysiological underpinnings through to the implications for health care policy.
Prof Davis is the PI of the Delirium and Population Health Informatics Cohort (DELPHIC) study, which tracks cognition before, during and after acute illness in older Camden residents.

Alasdair MacLullich

Responding to Distress in Delirium

Following undergraduate medical training, including an intercalated BSc in Psychology at the University of Edinburgh, Alasdair MacLullich completed general medical training and went on to do a PhD on glucocorticoids and cognitive ageing. He was Clinical Lecturer in Geriatric Medicine from 2000-2005 and an MRC Clinician Scientist Fellow from 2005-2009. He was appointed Professor of Geriatric Medicine at the University of Edinburgh in 2008. He co-founded the European Delirium Association in 2006 and is its current President.
He is active clinically, working in acute geriatric medicine and acute orthogeriatrics. He has a keen interest in improving the detection and management of delirium and dementia in acute hospital patients and leads the regional 'Delirium and Dementia Implementation Group'

Adam Kwok

A Partner's Experience

Adam possesses a unique blend of healthcare, healthcare administration, and personal experience dealing with delirium. Throughout his 30-year career in the health field, he held various roles and gained extensive experience. Adam started as a registered mental health nurse and later earned an honors degree in business administration. In 1992, he completed a Masters Degree in Finance and Accounting from the University of New South Wales. During this time, Adam served as the Finance Manager of a prominent teaching hospital and later became the Budget and Management Reporting Accountant for two NSW metropolitan Area Health Services. In 1997, he was recruited by an international consulting firm to establish their health actuarial consulting practice in response to legislative changes promoting private health insurance. Adam's profound personal experience as a caregiver for his late partner, who suffered from multiple episodes of delirium, shocked him and inspired him to help healthcare providers, patients, and families in preventing, detecting, and managing delirium

Babar Khan

Life after the ICU: Doom and Gloom or Hope and Possibility ?

Professor of Medicine in the division of Pulmonary/Critical Care, Allergy and Occupational Medicine at Indiana University School of Medicine and the Associate Director of Indiana University Center for Aging Research in Indianapolis, USA. Professor Khan's vision and passion are to improve brain health and recovery among critically ill patients. Hisresearch focuses on delirium or acute brain failure in the intensive care unit (ICU); and the long-term complications emanating from an ICU stay. The goal of hisresearch is to develop innovative translational and interventional strategies to identify, prevent and treat delirium in the ICU; and to enhance recovery from the long-term cognitive, physical, and psychological sequelae of critical illness, now recognized as post-intensive care syndrome (PICS).

Niccolo Terrando

Neuroimmune mechanisms in delirium superimposed on dementia    

Dr. Terrando is originally from the countryside of Torino, Italy. He received his Ph.D. from Imperial College London (D.I.C.) working at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital and the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology under the mentorship of professors Mervyn Maze, Sir Marc Feldmann and Claudia Monaco. He undertook his postdoctoral training at the University of California, San Francisco where he described in Dr. Akassoglou’s laboratory at the Gladstone Institute of Neurology a key role of macrophages and blood-brain barrier disruption in mediating neuroinflammation and cognitive decline after surgery. In 2012 Dr. Terrando moved to the Karolinska Institute as Assistant Professor before returning to the US and establishing his laboratory at Duke University in 2015, where is currently a tenured Associate Professor. Dr. Terrando’s research is centered on surgery-induced neuroinflammation and perioperative neurocognitive disorders. His laboratory is funded by the National Institute on Aging and his mission is to define the underlying mechanisms leading to postoperative delirium and to develop safe strategies to resolve neuroinflammation in the perioperative setting.

Stacey Williams

​Pre-Conference Workshop: Leading, Implementing, and Sustaining an Effective Delirium Quality Improvement Project

Stacey Williams DNP, APRN, CPNP-AC is a nurse practitioner at Monroe Carell Jr Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt in the Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care Unit and the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. She received her BSN and MSN at the University of Alabama in Birmingham in Birmingham, AL and her DNP at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN. She is a member of SCCM and ADS where she has been involved in the ICU liberation committee, author on the PANDEM guidelines, and pre-conference planning co-chair for ADS. Stacey is a member of the pediatric delirium team with the CIBS center, a member of the validation team for the preschool CAM-ICU, and is a co-investigator on the research grant for miniMENDs. Her research and quality improvement focuses on pediatric delirium, early mobility, and sedation.

Heidi Lindroth

Heidi Lindroth is an agile, clinician-nurse scientist with expertise in neuroscience and Artificial Intelligence. Her vision is a world without delirium. She aims to achieve this vision by co-designing solutions with patients, families, and the healthcare team to use evidence to stop delirium in clinical care. Dr. Lindroth is an Assistant Professor at Mayo Clinic and is a NIH-funded clinician-scientist, currently working to automate delirium severity measurement in the ICU using Artificial Intelligence. She serves on the American Delirium Society Board of Directors and co-leads the World Delirium Awareness Day Study Team. ​

Gen Shinozaki

The novel bispectral EEG (BSEEG) device for detection of delirium and prediction of patient outcomes

Dr. Shinozaki is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine. He is currently conducting epigenetic research studies funded by NIMH R01 as well as a clinical study to develop a novel bispectral EEG (BSEEG) device to screen delirium funded by NSF and industry. He received numerous awards including the APM William Web Fellowship Award in 2008, Howard Rome Mayo Clinic Resident Best Academic Writing Award as well as Best Grand Rounds Award in 2008, University of Iowa Helen Johnson Scholar in Informatics in 2014, University of Iowa Inventor Award in 2016 and 2019, and Dlin/Fischer Clinical Research Award in 2018, Visiting Professorship Award in 2019 and Wayne Katon Research Award in 2023 from the Academy of Consulation-Liaison Psychiatry for his innovative work on the development of a point-of-care BSEEG device to screen delirium and predict patient outcomes including mortality. The BSEEG method is now replicated and validated over 1,000 subjects and the data have been published in numerous peer-reviewed manuscripts.

Maria Senatore

A Daughter's Experience

Maria Senatore is a Registered Nurse currently employed with St Vincent’s Health Network as a Palliative Care Clinical Nurse Consultant. Maria has 43 years’ experience as a Registered Nurse. Maria has a Bachelor of Applied Science (Nursing) from Sydney University and a Master of Clinical Nursing (Clinical Nursing and Teaching) from UTAS. Other qualifications include Oncology Certificate, Graduate Diploma in Palliative Care, Cert IV in Training and Education and Diploma of Dementia Care. Maria has been involved in implementing Delirium Care standards through the St Vincent’s Health Network and is a member of the Community of Practice. She shares a very personal experience at the conference. Her Father was hospitalised and during his admission had an episode of Delirium which had an adverse impact on her father and the family. This led to Maria wanting to know more about Delirium prevention, management and harm minimisation​