Baby boomers and elderly need help with drug abuse too
(Photo - Wikimedia Commons)
Baby boomers numbering in the millions have been found to be using illicit drugs in the U.S. according to an August 2009 report by SAMHSA’s Office of Applied Studies. Compared with the year 2002, those reporting use of an illicit drug almost doubled from 2.7% of persons aged 50 to 59, to 5.0% in 2007. Baby boomers are those persons born between the years 1946 to 1964.
See An Examination of Trends in Illicit Drug Use among Adults Aged 50 to 59 here
The amount of baby boomers using illicit drugs is expected to rise by the year 2020 to 5.8 million. The impact on society associated with this increase will be great because of the additional health complications these people experience due to their age. The illicit drugs being abused are prescription medications in the opioid, antianxiety, sedative/hypnotic, and amphetamine families. Basically the same drugs abused by others in the general population. Even crack cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine are being abused. I personally witnessed more than a few 65 to 70 year old heroin and/or crack cocaine users.
Often overlooked, baby boomers, and the elderly in particular, are having just as many problems with substance abuse as the younger generation, if not more. The American Journal of Public Health reports that 1% of the elderly population uses illicit drugs. The researchers found an association between prescription drug abuse, alcohol, and depressive symptoms.
See Intervention for substance misuse among older adults here
Persons 65 years, and older make up 13% of the U.S. population, yet consume about 1/3 of all the drugs prescribed by physicians. Often having fragile health, the elderly can, and do have adverse affects from drugs due to decreased metabolism because of their age, higher rates of comorbid illnesses, and interactions between various drugs, supplements, and OTC medications they consume.
See Elderly Alcohol and Substance Abuse here
Just as teens are having problems with prescription drugs, baby boomers, and the elderly often suffer more for their use and abuse of these drugs. It is extremely important then for you to monitor any family member who is elderly. Gathering as much information as possible about drug abuse is your first step. It may be a cliché, but forewarned is forearmed. Find that help here.
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Baby boomers and drug abuse
Comments
What kind of illicit drugs for boomers? Must be pot and barbituates. Old bodies couldn't tolerate cocaine or other stimulants.
On the contrary, I personally knew some boomers still using narcotics, methamphetamines, crack cocaine, etc. Granted, they looked pretty beat up, but they were still abusing those substances. In addition, I also knew some senior citizens shooting up heroin, and/or smoking crack cocaine.
Great article, Michael. A lot of helpful information. I have seen older meth users. I remember one woman who had a stroke took meth in her orange juice every morning. Didn't even occur to her that it might put her at a higher risk for stroke until she had one.
I imagine that some older drug users look bad-those are the ones we notice. I have worked with pregnant addicts. The biggest pitfall for health care workers is that when they focus on the pregnant women they think are addicts they end up missing most of them. I'll bet the same blinders function with older adults.
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