The Client — Older Adults' Use of Alcohol and Medication

Choosing to Change: A Client-Centred Approach to Alcohol and Medication Use by Older Adults

Section 2: The Client - Identifying the Problem

Listed below are a few facts about older adults’ use of alcohol and non-prescription or prescribed medications.

Alcohol

In general, older adults who do drink consume less alcohol than do younger adults.
Small amounts of alcohol can worsen some health conditions — such as diabetes, heart or blood pressure problems, liver disease or stomach problems — that are more common in older adults.
Alcohol is a depressant which acts on the central nervous system and reduces alertness, co-ordination, judgment and reaction time, and increases the risk of falls or accidents. The consequences of falls or accidents can be more severe for older adults.
Psychoactive medications (e.g., sleeping pills and tranquillizers) are prescribed more often to older adults than younger adults. Alcohol may increase the effect or adversely interact with these medications.
Older adults are generally more sensitive to the effects of alcohol. This is because their blood circulation, kidneys and liver work more slowly to eliminate alcohol, and their bodies contain less water to dilute alcohol. Women are generally smaller than men and have proportionally less water in their bodies to dilute alcohol, so older women are even more sensitive to alcohol’s effects.

Medication

Older adults are rarely involved with illegal drugs. Compared with younger age groups, however, older adults are prescribed more medication, including psychoactive drugs, and they are higher users of non-prescription medicines.
Older adults are more likely than younger adults to use multiple prescribed and non-prescription medications at the same time, often to treat chronic physical illnesses.
Older adults may experience problems stemming from long-term use of psychoactive medication that was prescribed when such drugs were given out more freely than today.
Older adults are generally more sensitive than younger adults to the effects of medication. This is because their blood circulation, kidneys and liver work more slowly to eliminate medication, and their bodies contain less water to dilute medication. Women are generally smaller than men and have proportionally less water in their bodies to dilute medication, so older women are even more sensitive to the effects of medication.