Delirium has a high incidence and is prone to lead to poor prognosis of patients. The pathogenesis is still not completely clear, and antipsychotic drugs are mainly used to intervene in clinical practice, and there is no drug that can definitively improve the long-term health-related quality of life of patients with delirium. In this study, we review the research on the association between epigenetic modifications such as non-coding RNA, DNA methylation, histone acetylation and the development of delirium, with the aim of providing clinical decisions on the early identification and diagnosis of delirium, its treatment and prognosis, and the development of relevant targeted drugs.