Particular problems of antibiotic use in the elderly.

In prescribing antibiotics for older patients it is important to recognize the side effects as they are known in both older and younger people. It is particularly important to be aware of those side effects that appear to occur earlier in older patients, and also of those that may be masked in older people, eg, some of the neurotoxic syndromes. The number of drugs prescribed for geriatric patients should be kept to a minimum and meticulous records of all side effects noted. It may be impossible to decide which side effect is due to each drug in any given person, but by careful reporting and record-keeping, we may achieve a better separation of age-related drug complications from drug-drug interactions or the effects of concomitant disease states.