MRSA In The Elderly
At the Queen Anne Healthcare long-term facility in Seattle, it is not uncommon to have one or two of the 125 residents in isolation, recovering from a drug-resistant infection.
The afflicted persons may be permanent residents of the facility, or they may be visiting specifically to recover from the infection, according to Kristi Lott, a nurse at the facility. In the latter case, they may come from an assisted living center, a hospital, or at-home care.
"They come to get antibiotics for six weeks, in the more serious cases," Lott says. "To clear someone, they have to get at least three negative cultures."
Hospitals and other healthcare facilities are seeing a rising rate of drug-resistant infections, according to officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These infections, called methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections, are unable to be treated by traditional antibiotics such as penicillin, amoxicillin, and methicillin.
This article continues at MRSA in the Elderly.