Spending time in the ICU, especially for anyone with COVID-19, is a dangerous, physically taxing experience: Only the most seriously ill patients land in intensive care, where many undergo a number of complex medical treatments at once, making them even more vulnerable to life-threatening complications.

10 to 30 percent of the sickest, oldest patients who enter don’t make it out.

But for survivors, the mental toll can be even more severe than the physical one.

About one in three patients who spends more than five days in the ICU will experience some kind of psychotic reaction, which often takes the shape of delirium—an intense confusion that the patient can’t snap out of.

ICU doctors and nurses told me that delirious patients may believe their organs are being harvested, or that nurses are torturing them. A spike in fever might feel like being set on fire. An MRI exam might feel like being fed into an oven. Strange figures might appear on the floors, walls, and ceilings of their hospital room.

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