Although this 69-year-old woman was deeply confused, she was actually acting quite normally. She was experiencing a disturbance called I.C.U. psychosis, observed with increasing frequency as intensive care units proliferate. . . [Most] hospitals with more than 100 beds have some form of intensive care unit. About a third of the patients who spend more than five days there will experience some form of psychotic reaction.

Ms. Fogle said DeVries told her Friday that Clark has completely recovered from periods of confusion and forgetfulness suffered several weeks earlier while he was in the surgical intensive care unit.

The condition, called ICU psychosis, occurs in about 25 percent of intensive care patients, Ms. Fogle said. It is caused by the constant beeping of electronic monitors, taking of blood samples and changing of intravenous tubes, she said.

One of the human elements injected into the intensive care philosophy is to help the patients cope with what is termed "ICU psychosis" which can set in as patients spend seemingly endless days under constant supervised care and observation.