Study: Severely Demented Patients at End of Life Are Seven Times More Likely to Receive Antibiotics Unnecessarily

The concept of End of Life (EOL) care in the nursing home among severely demented patients (representing just one of many public health demographics) is a relatively broad one.  The spectrum of treatments can run the gamut of care, even with patients who are in well-defined hospice care plans.  The use of antibiotics for general, systemic infections in this period of a patient’s life is raising concerns.  Rising antibiotic resistance profiles in nursing facilities, failure of the demented patients to communicate even the most basic medical need, and the lack of effective communication between physician, family, and hospice team in the EOL scenario probably all contribute in some fashion to the results just out from a Harvard study.  In it, investigators concluded that severely demented patients were receiving antibiotics (many of them intravenously) at extremely high rates — without apparent benefit to the patient’s quality of life.  This care dilemma represents another overlooked (and underreported) arena of healthcare delivery which carries a major public health threat: antibiotic resistance.  It is something which has a relatively easy remedy.  Education. | LINK