Prevention of respiratory infections in elderly bed-bound nursing home patients.

A procedure to prevent silent aspiration, which results in frequent respiratory infections, was conducted on elderly bed-bound nursing home patients who suffered mainly from cerebral infarction and dementia. We cleaned the mouth with povidone iodine and kept them in a sitting position for 2 hr after each meal in order to restrict respiratory bacterial infection and to prevent aspiration of gastric juices, respectively. Patients with urinary tract infections were excluded from the present protocol. During the treatment for 103 days the number of febrile days was significantly decreased in the treated group compared with the control group, probably due to minimizing of respiratory infections.