Death by Excited Delirium: Diagnosis or Coverup?

Death by Excited Delirium: Diagnosis or Coverup? Enlarge this image toggle caption Cincinnati Police Department/Getty Images Cincinnati Police Department/Getty Images Hear Part 2 of This Report Law Tasers Implicated in Excited Delirium Deaths You may not have heard of it, but police departments and medical examiners are using a new term to explain why some people suddenly die in police custody. Medical Condition Not Recognized Deborah Mash, a professor of neurology at the University of Miami, describes the symptoms of the condition: "Someone who's disproportionately large, extremely agitated, threatening violence, talking incoherently, tearing off clothes, and it takes four or five officers to get the attention of that individual and bring him out of harm's way — that's excited delirium." "I know of no reputable medical organization — certainly not the AMA or the APA — that recognizes excited delirium as a medical or mental-health condition," Balaban says. Di Maio says that he saw three to five cases of excited delirium each year, and that there are probably several hundred cases nationwide.