Life expectancy in elderly with MAC and no treatment plan

Posted by jillie615 @jillie615, Jan 31 6:39am

I read about the life expectancy but it seems that there is not a lot of things on that in the elderly with no treatment decision. I just am wondering how long we have with mum, she has now had pneumonia 2x in 3mos

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Sue, Volunteer Mentor | @sueinmn | Jan 31 3:48pm

@jillie615 That's a very difficult thing to address.

We had a number of members who are "older" (70's and 80's) who elect to take the antibiotics because they feel they have a lot more living to do. Others try "everything short of" the antibiotics - saline nebs, airway clearance, exercise - because they don't feel they can tolerate the drugs.

Let me tell you a little different story - about my own family. My Mom had Bronchiectasis, Asthma, frequent pneumonia, Congestive Heart Failure, severe arthritis and complications from strokes when she was hospitalized yet again at 84. She had been fighting the good fight, to stay as independent as possible, for nearly six years.
After a final fall, resulting in a long hospitalization, including 2 bouts of pneumonia, we all met with her hospitalists and the palliative care team. (I am sure her repeated "pneumonia" over the last 3-4 years of life was MAC, Pseudomonas, or both. At that point she was not tested for MAC (which I didn't even know existed back then) but we would never have subjected her to the antibiotic treatment with her other health issues.)

Together we decided she was on the "slippery slope" and would never get back to her assisted living apartment and her dear friends there. She was adamant that she would neither live with any of us kids, nor enter a "real nursing home" so she elected to enter a residential hospice rather than trying rehab "one more time" and died peacefully with several of us at her side a month later.

So as you can see, the real answer is "it depends."

What other health issues does your Mom have? What do the doctors say about treating MAC? Would she be able to manage the 3 drugs? What does she want to do?
Sue