Canadian Guidelines on Opioid Use Disorder Among Older Adults.
Canadian Guidelines on Opioid Use Disorder Among Older Adults.
Canadian Coalition for Seniors’ Mental Health, Toronto, Canada (2019)
According to the World Health Organization, people over the age of 50 accounted for 39% of deaths from drug use disorders in 2015. Of those deaths in older adults (age ≥ 65), approximately 75% were linked to the use of opioids (Degenhardt & Hall, 2012; UNODC, 2018).
In Canada, 43.9% of adults > 55 years of age have used a prescription opioid and 1.1% of that group have done so daily (or almost daily) in the last year (Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction, 2018).
There is a growing population of older adults developing opioid use disorder (OUD). In addition to this, there are older adults with longstanding OUD (including people who use illicit opioids) that require treatment for their addiction and related health problems.
https://ccsmh.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Canadian_Guidelines_Opioid_Use_Disorder_ENG.pdf