Wow these patients are SICK!

Last year, I returned to bedside nursing after working in an outpatient cardiology clinic and stress testing lab for two years. I'm on a telemetry floor and my patients seem so much more complex then I remember them being. So many co-morbidities, so many confused patients, and so many meds! I know we look to prolong our lives but there can be so many age related body failures associated with doing so that I wonder sometimes if it's worth living for an entire century. Anyone else noticing this trend?
It's a pretty well documented trend although most of the research comes from outside the US, it's still consistent with patient acuity trends in the US. Basically, a large number patients who are now step-down or progressive care or even medical floor patients were pretty standard ICU or other higher level care only 10-15 years ago. The volume of higher acuity hospitalized patients has increased substantially but the number of ICU and other higher level care beds hasn't really changed, which is a big reason the supposed nursing shortages never really materialized as predicted; they got the increase in acuity right, they just didn't realize we wouldn't maintain the same acuity to staffing standards over time.

They're certainly coming to me (HH) younger and sicker. I can't believe how young.

Yes, it has been well-documented that the acuity of hospitalized patients has steadily increased over the years -- as has the complexity of care they need. The low acuity patients are treated as outpatients. That's a big reason why the profession and hospitals are making such an effort to upgrade the educational levels of hospital nurses.