Nursing home residents on the verge of death are increasingly receiving intense levels of rehabilitation therapy in their final weeks and days, raising questions about whether such services are helpful or simply a lucrative source of revenue.

That is the heart of a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Directors Association, which found that the practice was twice as prevalent at for-profit nursing homes as at nonprofit ones.

More broadly, the study’s findings suggest that some dying residents may not be steered to hospice care, where the focus is on their comfort.

Although the research is based on a relatively small number of patients in one state, it echoes what federal regulators have found in recent years.