Older Admissions to Substance Abuse Treatment in 2001

STEPHAN ARNDT; TRACY GUNTER; LAURA ACION

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF GERIATRIC PSYCHIATRY

LIPPINCOTT WILLIAMS & WILKINS

Lugar: Philadelphia; Año: 2005 vol. 13 p. 385 - 392

1064-7481

Objective: The number of older people with substance abuse problems is expected toincrease over the next decade. Given the expected growth in the number of elderlyclients needing substance abuse treatment, the authors provide a description of admissionsof patients age 55 years and over to facilities receiving some public funds.Methods: The Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS), a public-use data-set, containedinformation on 58,073 admissions to substance treatment (age 55) and 1,043,910admissions age 30?54 years. Results: Older admissions listed only one substance?daily use of alcohol. Admission record notations indicated that these admissions weremore frequently associated with income, insurance, and marriage or divorce thanyounger admissions. As in younger admissions, criminal justice was a major sourceof referral to treatment. Older patients? admissions records indicated fewer previoustreatment experiences. Older male and female admissions were similar in many regards,but differed in their treatment history. The current treatment admission wasmore often the first for female admissions. Older female admissions were likely to bemore educated than their male counterparts, with a later age at onset. Conclusions:Older admissions to substance abuse treatment differed in important ways fromyounger adult admissions. The older admissions tended to come from a more stableenvironment (income, insurance, marriage). Despite their very high frequency andamount of drinking, few of these admissions were referred to treatment by healthcareworkers.