Delirium: Novel diagnostics and practical approaches in treatment

Professor Tim Walsh is Director of Research & Innovation for NHS Lothian, and Health Innovation South East Scotland. He is also Professor of Critical Care at the University of Edinburgh and Honorary Consultant in Critical Care at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. He is Head of the Academic Dept of Anaesthesia, Critical Care, and Pain Medicine in the University of Edinburgh, and Co-director of Acute Care Edinburgh a multidisciplinary research grouping in the University of Edinburgh Usher Institute. Tim leads a multidisciplinary clinical research group with interests including transfusion medicine, sedation in the critically ill, recovery from critical illness and the epidemiology and prevention of ICU acquired infection. He has a particular interest in large pragmatic clinical trials, complex health intervention trials, and the evaluation of novel diagnostics and technologies in acute care. He is a past Chairman of the NIHR UK Critical Care Research Network and UK Critical Care Research Group.

Arjen Slooter studied Medicine at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam (1994) and was research fellow in Neuro-Epidemiology at the G.H. Sergievsky Center, Columbia University, New York (1996). He received a PhD in Epidemiology from Erasmus University, Rotterdam (1998), on a thesis on dementia. During his residency in Neurology at UMC Utrecht (1999-2004), he became enthusiastic for Neurocritical Care. After a fellowship in Intensive Care Medicine (AMC Amsterdam, 2004-2006), he rejoined the UMC Utrecht where he is currently working as consultant neurologist-intensivist at the Department of Intensive Care Medicine. In 2016, he was appointed as Professor in Intensive Care Neuropsychiatry at Utrecht University. Dr Slooter has been chair of the delirium section of the (American) Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM) guidelines on pain, agitation/sedation, delirium, immobility, and sleep disruption. In addition, he is President of the European Delirium Association and initiator and chair of an international consortium to update nomenclature on delirium and acute encephalopathy. Dr Slooter has an honorary appointment at UZ Brussel and Vrije Universiteit Brussels. The research focus of Arjen Slooter is on delirium and on neuropsychiatric outcome after anaesthesia/surgery or critical illness. Using various methods and approaches (epidemiology, EEG, MRI), he has investigated all aspects of delirium, including its phenomenology and brain network characteristics, detection and monitoring, risk factors, prognosis, prevention and treatment. Research on neuropsychiatric outcomes includes risk factor analysis on cognitive decline, mental illness and chronic pain after critical illness and treatment in the ICU. The clinical focus of Arjen Slooter is on Intensive Care of neurological- and neurosurgical patients, and on neurological complications of critical illness. Arjen lives with his wife Barbara, daughter Pien (2001) and son Bas (2004) in beautiful Utrecht.