Same with being stunned.

If you are stunned, you can just press "5" and I think it's intentional.

I've always thought this "workaround" was intentional behavior. It's not much of a workaround since you are still stuck in place until the effects wear off and are liable to get pummeled while that is happening. It makes sense, really. You can choose to stay motionless, not being able to do much of anything in your confused state, trying to regain your senses, but if you try to move, your mind can't give your body the right instructions and you stagger. It's similar to being very drunk (in real life, that is; in the game, the effects of being drunk seem minimal, but I'm not sure if anyone's ever given this extensive testing).

And cleaning your ears or dressing your wounds in this state is normal. When I'm stunned by a blow to the head from a bouncer while drunk at the pub, I'm going to stagger around or fall over, not put my finger in my ear.

I'll try that next time, maybe TB was trying to teach us something.

Agreed, but trying to clean your ears or apply First Aid is hardly staying motionless.

'p'aying a non-existent shopkeeper triggers this too.

As far as First Aid goes this should have been fixed for a number of prereleases. I fixed the "clean ears" thing now, too.

-delete me-

There are still a few ways to circumvent staggering while in stunned or confused status.

^ 'a'pplying Listening is one of them.

Thankfully, you can just wait in place by pressing 5 when you're stunned (I think that's intentional too). Confusion is not so kind, and I can see the final level of the TotHK getting more challenging once all workarounds are fixed.