The more dependent elderly people are, the more likely they are to develop urinary infections. Professor Brocklehurst discusses prevalence and methods of treatment

Infected urine is common in old age, particularly in women. There have been many studies of its prevalence in people at different ages and Figure 1 shows findings from a number of these. These figures are taken from a number of different surveys carried out using slightly different criteria but nevertheless they emphasise the two important facts about urinary tract infection in women. The first thing is that it is associated with sexual activity being of low prevalence in young girls and in nuns but having a prevalence of between 3.5 and 4.5 per cent among other women between the ages of 15 and 64. Honeymoon cystitis, of course, is a well-known phenomenon and, bearing in mind the short and relatively unprotected female urethra and its proximity to the perianal area which is constantly contaminated with coliform organisms, the relationship between sexual activity and urinary infection is not surprising.