Delirium represents a common, serious and potentially life-threatening problem for older adults. The American Psychiatric Association defines delirium as disturbance of consciousness with reduced ability to focus, sustain or shift attention, changes in cognition or development of a perceptual disturbance that is not better accounted for by a pre-existing, established or evolving dementia, disturbance that develops over a short period of time and tends to fluctuate during the course of a day, and evidence that the disturbance is directly caused by the effects of a medical condition. Here, Flanagan illustrates an acute delirium episode of an elderly woman admitted to post acute care following a laparoscopic choleycystectomy.