Ensure upright position with meals and tube feeds. In this literature review, it was noted that residents with nursing home acquired pneumonia who aspirated exhibited three times the risk of death compared with those who did not aspirate. Ineffective clearing of mucus from the respiratory tract makes older people, especially those with additional disease burden, more vulnerable to pneumonia secondary to aspiration. The physical signs of pneumonia in the older person are often latent, according to the authors. Pneumonia in the older person may present as mental status changes, functional impairment, falls, decrease in appetite, incontinence, low or normal white blood cell count, and tachypnea and tachycardia.
Aspiration appears to increase a resident s risk of death from nursing home acquired pneumonia.
See the ASCP Web site for a Statement on the Role of the Consultant Pharmacist in Immunization Programs in the Long-term Care Environment . No Panacea for Resistant Infections N ew antibiotics to fight infections resistant to all other drugs are seen as a stopgap measure until new efforts come from studying the genetic structures of the bacteria. According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, pharmaceutical manufacturers are racing to prepare a new arsenal of weapons for use against the rising tide of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Linezolid works by blocking the very early stage of the bacterial reproductive cycle. According to one of the linezolid researchers, Goran Ando, Back in the 1980s a lot of infectious-disease researchers had become complacent.