Study Findings: Antibiotics Overused

February 27, 2008

(Long Island, N.Y.) A recent study conducted by Hebrew Senior Life Institute for Aging Research in Boston which is affiliated with Harvard University suggests that doctors prescribed antibiotics more frequently than often required especially to aging patients with terminal diseases such as dementia and other brain disease.

The study was conducted by enrolling exactly 200 senior citizen patients with advanced stages of dementia. The respondents where observed for more than 18 months and within that time-frame, almost half of the subjects succumbed to death barely recognizing their loved ones. Nearing death, they also lost the ability to speak and the strength to walk on their own accord.

“Advanced dementia is a terminal illness,” said study co-author Dr. Susan Mitchell, a senior scientist with the Hebrew Senior Life Institute for Aging. “If we substituted ‘end-stage cancer’ for ‘advanced dementia,’ I don’t think people would have any problem understanding this. They were at what anyone would consider the very final stage,”

After carefully reviewing medical records of the subjects, researchers determined that over 42% of the respondents where given intravenous antibiotics two weeks before they died and an increase in dosage was evident as the patient nears death. Too much antibiotics could cause increased chances of contracting “superbugs” which are resistant to antibiotics and sometimes fatal to elderly patients prompting calls from the medical community for moderate use of antibiotics for all age group patients.

Doctors are crossed in opinions with regards to the usage of antibiotics. “Until that decision is made that death is imminent, there’s always hope,” said Dr. Eric Tangalos, a geriatrician at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, who was not involved in the study. “People do recover from those infections.”

Meanwhile, other medical experts have a broader logic on the subject, “You might rescue the patient from life-threatening pneumonia and they live a few days, weeks or even months longer,” said Bruce Jennings, a bioethicist with the Hastings Center, a research institute on medical ethics. “But the extra time you have bought them by that rescue is not beneficial.” in referring to the extremely low and difficult quality of life for patients with terminal cases experience.

Posted by News LI Editor · Edited by Brianna - Filed Under Health