A particularly dangerous form of infection for nursing home patients is often a result of taking antibiotics. Clostridium difficile, usually abbreviated as c. diff., has become more widespread and deadly for nursing home and hospital patients.

Many hospital and nursing home patients have to take antibiotics for some type of infection. For example, very sick nursing home patients sometimes have to use a catheter because of a urinary tract disorder. This raises the risk of a urinary tract infection which requires an antibiotic to resolve.

Unfortunately the use of the antibiotic can cause the death of both the bad bacteria causing the infection and good bacteria in the digestive tract. This creates an opportunity for the c. diff. organism to grow. Public health officials have recently estimated that the disease is now killing from 15,000 to 20,000 people per year.

One of the ways the disease causes death is through severe dehydration. C. diff. causes extended and serious diarrhea which in turn can result in dehydration. Therefore at any time a nursing home resident has had a course of antibiotics followed by diarrhea it is especially important for the resident’s family to be on the lookout for signs or symptoms of dehydration.

We have seen a growing number of cases in which the nursing home staff in Daytona Beach, Volusia County, Deltona and Ormond Beach do not recognize the symptoms of severe dehydration soon enough. For information about these nursing homes see the Florida Nursing Home Guide. A nursing home resident should be transferred to the hospital emergency room for treatment of severe dehydration as soon as possible. Therefore, if you start to see symptoms of even mild dehydration insist that a physician evaluate your family member.

Symptoms of dehydration include thirst, muscle weakness, headache, dizziness, lightheadedness, dry mouth, lack of sweating, shriveled skin that does not bounce back when pinched into a fold, low blood pressure, rapid heartbeat, delirium, altered mental status, and fever. For more information on c. diff. see a recent article in the New York Times by Tara Parker-Pope, Stomach Bug Crystallizes an Antibiotic Threat, and for more information on dehydration see an article on the Mayo Clinic website.

]]> http://www.daytonanursinghomeandmedicalmalpracticelawyer.com/death-by-antibiotics-in-a-nursing-home/feed 0