Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 13, 1990 TAG: 9005130056
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: D4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL BASKERVILL ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
A doctor treats the injuries, but the man's primary health problem - alcoholism - goes undetected.
"Alcoholism in the elderly is drastically underdetected and undertreated," says Dr. Nancy Osgood, a Medical College of Virginia gerontologist. " . . . We have a hard time thinking a person 85 years old could have an alcohol problem."
Osgood and officials of the Virginia Department for the Aging have developed what they say is the nation's first statewide program to detect alcoholism in the elderly. The aim is to help alcoholics get assistance.
About 100 two-member teams of volunteers will receive a day of intensive training from the state and each team in turn will train 125 people. The first formal training session was in February and another is set for September.
The goal is to have 12,500 family members of older alcoholics, older adults and social service and health professionals versed in the physical and psychological effects of alcohol and aging.
"We hope it will extensively raise public awareness" of the problem, said J. James Cotter, director for program development and management for the Department for the Aging.
Osgood said one other state - Delaware - is setting up a detection program, using Virginia's as a model.
"There is not a lot of awareness of the extent of the problem," she said.
Rita Albery, a public health adviser to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, said a preoccupation with treating alcoholism in younger people has obscured the problem with the elderly.
"We've got to start paying attention to this population," she said.
Studies have found that between 2 percent and 10 percent of the 28 million Americans over 65 are alcoholics, or about 560,000 to 2.8 million people.
But the statistics are misleading because the problem is largely undetected, said Osgood.
"The elderly don't usually come in contact with work officials or even with family members because they live alone," she said.
Many older people also grew up believing alcoholism was a moral issue - instead of a chronic disease - and that overcoming it was a matter of willpower. This makes it hard for older people to admit a need for help.
It's difficult for physicians to distinguish symptoms of alcoholism - such as memory loss and blackouts - from the natural aging process, Osgood said. Many physicians also are reluctant to recognize alcoholism in the elderly or to confront an older patient with the problem, she said.
Elderly alcoholics themselves make diagnosing the disease difficult because they hide their drinking.
"Alcoholics can hide it from anybody. It's a real hidden disease," said Osgood, who has written extensively on geriatric alcoholism, depression and suicide.
A more insidious barrier to detecting and treating alcoholism among the elderly is an attitude of "the bottle is the only thing they have left . . . why take it away from them," Osgood said. "They're really the ones we should be taking it away from."
by CNB