Many older people in long-term care facilities probably should be put on shorter courses of antibiotics when they have bacterial infections.

That’s the recommendation in a new study that says almost  half of antibiotic prescriptions for Ontario seniors in long-term care in 2010 were for a treatment course  of longer than seven days.

But most infections can be treated more quickly than that and the researchers say the time on antibiotics should be reduced by 19 per cent.

The study is published in the journal  JAMA Internal Medicine.