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Intensive Care Unit Delirium

The ICU Delirium group at IU School of Medicine conducts randomized clinical trials, including efficacy trials and pragmatic, effectiveness trials. A biorepository for ICU patients with delirium is available from this group to answer specific pathophysiological mechanisms predisposing to delirium.

Patient Services

Follow-up care for survivors of ICU care is available at the Critical Care Recovery Center to improve long-term cognitive, functional and psychological sequelae of critical illness.

Research Collaboration

Local collaborators in the ICU Delirium group include The Center for Aging Research at Indiana University and the Regenstrief Institute as well as national collaborators at the Mayo Clinic and Vanderbilt University.

Active Research

Dr. Sikandar and Babar Khan are working on the Indiana COVID-19 Recovery Program for Older Adults. The aim of the project is to establish the Indiana COVID-19 Recovery Program for Older Adults as a state-wide discovery-to-delivery clinical research laboratory capable of cultivating transdisciplinary scientific activities with a focus on optimizing cognitive, functional, and psychologic independence among COVID-19 survivors.

Dr. Sikandar Khan’s current research activities are focused on three main areas. Delirium incidence, duration, and severity in ICU patients, delirium risk factors, and the effects of delirium on cognitive and physical outcomes. This also includes evaluation of novel non-pharmacological interventions for ICU delirium and implementation of bundled protocols (e.g., ABCDEF) for ICU delirium management. Cognitive, physical, psychiatric, and quality of life outcomes in survivors of critical illness, especially those admitted to the ICU with COVID-19.

Dr. Babar Khan’s research is at the intersection of delirium in the intensive care unit (ICU) and the long-term complications experienced by millions of ICU survivors associated with the syndrome. His work is focused on developing innovative interventions to prevent and treat delirium based on an improved understanding of the translational aspects of delirium. He has developed and validated a novel, easy-to-administer tool to score and track delirium severity in the ICU, enabling clinicians anywhere to make better decisions about the brain health of ICU patients.

Research Faculty