Personal experience in the treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis in mentally retarded persons

: The results of the therapy of pulmonary tuberculosis in 90 mentally retarded patients in various forms and degrees of retardation are presented. General and clinical condition of 62 patients was very bad prior to the onset of antituberculotic therapy and most of them were immobile due to the mental retardation and dissemination of pulmonary tuberculosis. In 30 patients advanced form of tuberculosis, in 54 patients mild form and in 6 patients a minimal degree of tuberculosis were found. In hospitalized patients all clinical forms of pulmonary tuberculosis were found. The therapy started with triplicate antituberculotic therapy and the patients were also administered other drugs due to their mental retardation. During the first two months of antituberculotic therapy a high mortality rate was registered (27 or 30%) especially in younger patients. The reason for such high rate cannot be attributed only to pulmonary tuberculosis but also to the primary disease as was the main reason of patients' hospitalization at the institute for mentally retarded persons. Many complications in antituberculotic use could not be registered since many of the basic data could not be obtained from mentally retarded subjects. The complete recovery or improvement of pulmonary tuberculosis was achieved in 63 patients.