Characteristics of older opioid maintenance patients

Uso de substâncias psicoativas em idosos: uma revisão integrativa

“…Major depression disorder is common, in both the young and the elderly (Lofwall et al, 2005) and in this population, it was associated with higher prevalence of cannabis consumption and lower use of alcohol (Blazer & Wu, 2009). It was also found that the elderly had had more major depressive episodes "in the last year" (Han et al, 2009).…”

“…Of these, seven refer to data extracted from epidemiological studies, carried out to monitor the population (Armstrong, 2007;Blazer & Wu, 2009;Fahmy et al, 2012;Han et al, 2009;Horyniak et al, 2013;Lofwall et al, 2008;Sacco et al, 2013), based on large samples -between 3417 and 452,567 individuals. Four studies reported on data obtained through the application of questionnaires, evaluations or analysis of clinical histories of users of treatment services for problems related to drug use (Beynon et al, 2009;Lofwall et al, 2005;Pillon et al, 2010;Roibás et al, 2010). Two articles reported on data related to urine analyses at emergency services (Rivers et al, 2004;Schlaerth et al, 2004).…”

“…Nevertheless, when dealing with substance dependence, the cutoff point for older individuals is normally much lower. In some cases it is as low as 35; some studies have used 40 (EMCDDA, 2010), and others have adopted 50 or more (Beynon et al, 2009;Lofwall, Brooner, Bigelow, Kindbom, & Strain, 2005). Using 40 as a cutoff point may be due to the fact that individuals at this age generally have a long history of problematic drug use, which may exacerbate or accelerate conditions associated with age, prematurely leading to metabolic aging and complications such as atherosclerosis or cardiopulmonary ailments.…”

“…Furthermore, in this population, it is estimated that the aging process is accelerated by at least 15 years (EMCDDA, 2010). Studies that adopt 50 as the cutoff recognize that this is not a chronically old age, but consider it as such, due to elderly patients dependent on substances having higher levels of medical morbidities, when compared to younger people (Lofwall et al, 2005).…”

“…The interaction between the effects of consumption and the aging process are still not well understood (Beynon et al, 2009), which contributes to the underreporting of these users (Pillon et al, 2010), who may present characteristics specific to the level of consumption effects and consequent treatment (Lofwall et al, 2005). It is, therefore, necessary to understand the needs of this age group (Pillon et al, 2010).…”