Senior Drug Addiction, a Sensitive Issue

The Elderly and Substance Corruption

As a culture, we ofttimes underestimate both the extent and issue of addiction on our senior population. Though great headway has been made on educating the public that addiction is a disease, there is often an underlying supposition – or perception – of addiction equally a problem afflicting merely the immature.

Certainly, you can imagine the likely affront if a senior citizen were asked to take a drug examination on a routine visit to their doctor. There is an undeniable sense that drug screening is used to rule out undesirable individuals from certain employment or to monitor felons on probation. It tin can seem undignified and even law-breaking to drug examination someone's great grandmother.

No i wants to feel that a medical test is being undertaken because they are non trusted or are no longer competent to handle their own medication schedule.

Regardless of those facts, the elderly are at a real risk of harm from drug and alcohol misuse and abuse. Ultimately, ways must be constitute to normalize the expectation of drug testing, so that negative connotations are avoided and the true value of handing of import cognition to the physician is recognized.

Senior Exposure to Drugs and Alcohol

While teenagers often encounter drugs and alcohol every bit part of youthful rebellion and experimentation, at parties, or considering of peer pressure, seniors come to addiction through different avenues. Ane thing both teens and seniors may accept in common is attempting to cocky-medicate during stressful times or to overcome physical and psychological issues.

Both the young and old can identify with issues such as:

  • The death of a friend, family member, or spouse.
  • Loss of income and financial stresses.
  • Family unit conflicts and trouble sleeping.

As we historic period, we not just find ourselves responding to these same stresses, simply piling on a serial of new ones as well:

  • Retirement and loss of purpose.
  • Relocation, perhaps to a nursing home.
  • A decline in concrete health, including major surgeries and diseases.
  • A decline in metal health, including memory loss, depression, and dementia.

It's piece of cake to imagine a widow whose alcohol consumption increases during a period of grieving for a lost spouse, or a retiree whose sleep schedule becomes disrupted and tries to deal with it through prescription or over-the-counter sleeping medications, only to develop a dependency or exhibit dangerous slumber behaviors.

Today, one of the almost commonly recognized senior addictions is related to the opioid crunch. For years, prescription opiates similar Vicodin and Oxycontin were prescribed for pain in the elderly, often with the mistaken idea that they were not addictive drugs.

Now, imagine these same seniors seek medical attention for depression, weakness, short-term memory loss, or a diverseness of symptoms that may be related to aging, merely which can also exist caused substance misuse. Depending on other physical ailments, from back hurting to diabetes, they end upward visiting several doctors, all of whom may exist ignorant of what the others are prescribing.

Even when seniors do report their medication schedules to each physician or medical practitioner in their lives, they should not exist counted on to realize the consequences of forgetting, under reporting, or willfully concealing information.

According to the Part of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services, these scenarios would be classified as "belatedly onset" drug corruption. Some other group is the "hardy survivor," a person who has been abusing drugs throughout their life and has simply anile into the senior population. In both cases, prescribing new treatments or drugs without an understanding of what substances the seniors are already dealing with presents a real danger to the health of the patient.

The Dangers of Undiagnosed Substance Abuse in Seniors

Aging presents many challenges, none of which are improved through the abuse of drugs or alcohol, whether or not that misuse is intentional. A articulate example is any senior with mobility problems. Difficulty in walking or an unsteady gait already puts many at run a risk of falling. Innovate the effects of alcohol or hurting medication and the risk of broken bones and hip fractures increases correspondingly.

Co-ordinate to a study by the Kaiser Permanente Center for Wellness Enquiry, women aged 65 to 69 who suspension a hip are 5X more probable to die within a year than other women the same age. Each year over 300,000 older people are hospitalized for a hip fracture. Adding booze and drug addiction to the dangers of osteoporosis is neither a good recipe for prevention nor recovery from a fall.

Another danger is as simple as forgetfulness, a mutual complaint among older adults. Historic period related retentivity loss need not be a sign of dementia or Alzheimer's disease, but it can exist exacerbated by alcohol and drug apply – which may then lead to not taking prescribed medications correctly.

A treating physician could be faced with a senior not taking needed medications properly or overdosing on the same prescriptions.

There are many possible scenarios where lack of awareness of an addictive behavior, or even the potential to cause addiction when 1 physician has prescribed sleeping pills, while another has prescribed pain medication, could effect in a bad patient effect.

The Value of Therapeutic Drug Monitoring

While it is natural to look that grandmother may be taken aback, or your 80-year old uncle insulted, at the prospects of a drug screening, the value of placing accurate information in the easily of a physician tin outweigh these concerns.

Ongoing testing during treatment tin help provide an accurate moving-picture show of drug usage, which can exist a life saver.

Therapeutic drug monitoring is an arroyo generally used in pain direction scenarios. To be of use, therapeutic testing must become beyond screening for common drugs of abuse (DOA) and examination at levels different than those typically used in drug screening scenarios.

Therapeutic testing must include drugs commonly prescribed for pain and sleep disorders, including opiates, methadone, benzodiazepines, and fentanyl. While urine testing is a fast and easy showtime step, blood testing is the best way of confirming a result and offer accurate quantization.

Armed with appropriate, quantitative information, physicians are better able to prescribe accordingly and address issues that may pb to or already have resulted in addiction amidst senior patients.

Extent of the Problem

Unfortunately, substance abuse among older adults is an invisible epidemic. According to a report past the National Eye for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), corruption of alcohol and prescription drugs among adults 60 and over is one of the fastest growing wellness problems in the land.

The NCBI estimates drug corruption and misuse affects up to 17% of older adults. Today, that could represent an at gamble senior population of over 8 million. And the trouble will keep to abound. In 1990, only 13 percent of Americans were over 65. Estimates show that by 2030, older American volition correspond 21 per centum of the population.

Senior health care systems and at-home services, already stressed by the connected growth of senior populations, can merely be faced with greater challenges for each person who, instead of entering their golden years with a healthy head start, ends upwards contesting habit.

The Role of Ageism

Nosotros've already discussed the idea that seniors and their children or grandchildren may feel resentful or ashamed to even hash out the idea of addictive beliefs. Later all, isn't drug corruption a failure of the young? Some elderly may take harbored judgmental feelings toward drug addiction all their lives, only to discover themselves in a situation where deprival is the obvious first choice.

Add to these issues the damage of ageism, where physicians and family may excuse behavior in older adults that would receive more attention in the young. This could exist stated as the "how volition grandma get through the day without her drinkable, or her pills," phenomenon. "What does it matter, they won't be here that much longer?" is another, more breathy manner to run into ageism in activity.

Working to assure quality of life in older adults is near more than than masking symptoms with pain pills or allowing older loved ones to slip into low and alcohol.

Despite skillful intentions, ageism contributes to the fact that older patients are less likely to be diagnosed with substance abuse problems and less probable to receive treatment when diagnosed.

Addressing Pain in the Elderly

While over-prescription of opioids and the vast availability of alcohol play their roles, the ane thing nosotros should not lose sight of is that condemning the elderly to live in pain, either physical or psychological, is unacceptable.

Pain is not necessarily an inevitable result of growing old. It has both causes and consequences for daily living. It should likewise be recognized that many older people, rather than fake pain for attention and drugs, vastly under report pain. They may feel their pain is an inevitable part of aging, or they may believe reporting it will lead to an unwelcome diagnosis, such as cancer.

According to The Ochsner Journal, a multi-disciplinary approach to diagnosis and pain management is needed, considering hurting assessment in older adults can exist circuitous.

A wide variety of options are bachelor, depending on the diagnosis, from over-the-counter medications and topical analgesics to antidepressants and, yes, fifty-fifty opioids.

The goal, after all, is to improve quality of life for seniors and the elderly, and one way to practise that is to discover and better instances of drug and alcohol abuse and addiction.

To learn about Drug Testing Program Management (DTPM) and our turnkey services for laboratories in clinical, drug court, and physician's office settings, call usa today at 256-845-1261, or visit our Contact Usa page today.

On February 23, 2018 / Articles