Why do so many people, especially the elderly, seem to die from pneumonia?

I don’t know the answer to this question but just to put another ‘case study’ across, my mum has just had pneumonia for three months and is still in recovery, but she is definitely over the most serious part and is doing well. It started as bronchitis apparently and then developed and she’s had several courses of antibiotics (over 4 at least!), but we’re over the hump and like I say, she’s doing well. Oh and she is 68 and hasn’t been in hospital.

People who are confined to bed (often from some other ailment) and don’t regularly change positions—or who lack the respiratory strength to deeply cycle air in and out of the lungs, will tend to develop accumulations of fluid in the lungs which can foster infection. The elderly or weak may also be more prone to inhaling bits of food and not have the strength to cough it out. This can lead to pneumonia.

Antibiotic resistance is becoming a problem. There are several microbes that cause pneumonia, and currently about 17% of them are showing resistance to at least one antibiotic. Hospitals are breeding grounds for the most resistant bacteria.

Their immune systems are too weak to fight it off.

When my dad was going, he had pneumonia, mostly caused by a breakdown of his epiglottal function. (In other words, stuff he was trying to eat or drink would leak into his lungs.) That set him up for infection and other lung issues.

Apparently as you get older each attack of bronchitis or pneumonia also leaves behind a little more permanant damage, so it’s a cumulative affect as well.

I will add to @Adirondackwannabe‘s answer and offer up that the flu causes a lot of people to get ill and that takes down the immune system in a big way which tees up the body for all kinds of secondary infections and pneumonia is often one of them which is why doctors so strongly recommend the flu shots especially for the elderly.

It’s not just the bacteria becoming resistant to the antibiotics. It’s also your body becoming resistant to them. My husband was born with Spina-Bifida. He’s been on and off antibiotics since he was an infant. His latest stint in the hospital proved difficult. He had a raging infection and he could take none of the A-Typical antibiotics because his body was allergic to them. They had to take blood samples and then play around with different antibotics to see which ones would beat the infection and not give my husband horrible side effects. Very frustrating.

oh crikey :-(

Pneumonia is called “the old folks friend.” When the body is really worn out to the point of no return and there is nothing in the future but a long, inevitable death, pneumonia takes over. The body is no longer strong enough to fight off infection and because of very low resistance, the patient, parent, loved one, mercifully gets to leave the earthly existence. My dear mother-in-law repeatedly wondered why she had to go through this long process. Finally she was able to stop suffering. I was sad to lose her, but felt comfort that she didn’t have to suffer any longer.

Because having an infection in your lung can be deadly. It causes a V/Q mismatch so that your blood can’t oxygenate.