CONTENTS

Table of Contents
Introduction

1. Overview
2. Recognizing Alcohol Misuse and Abuse in Older Adults
3. Alcohol and Aging
4. Diagnosing Alcohol Problems in Older Adults
5. Recognizing Other Forms of Substance Abuse
6. Prevention and Early Intervention Strategies
7. Treatment
8. Outcomes and Cost Issues in Alcohol Treatment for Older Adults
9. Legal and Ethical Issues

Supplements
Resources

At Any Age, It Does Matter:
Substance Abuse and Older Adults (for Professionals)

Introduction

Outcomes research is concerned not only with results of studies but also with determining what exactly should be studied. For alcohol treatment among older adults, for example, should the measure of success be treatment compliance? Amount of alcohol consumed? Level of physical health? Psychological well-being?

There have been few systematic studies of alcoholism treatment outcome¹ or the costs of treatment² for older adults. Therefore, more general studies are applied to that population. Because there are virtually no outcome studies of prescription drug use treatment for older adults, only alcohol use is addressed.