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Substance Use and Abuse

  • Reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Geropsychology

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Synonyms

Illicit drugs; Prescription drugs; Problem drinking; Substance use disorders; Unhealthy substance use

Definition

A substantial proportion of older adults use and misuse alcohol, tobacco, illicit drugs, and prescription medications, and there are several risk factors that increase an older adult’s likelihood of engaging in such health behavior. Due to their particular life stage, assessing older adults for substance use or misuse presents unique challenges. Few existing treatments have been tested on older adults; however, treatments are known to be more effective when they are tailored to the older adult and take into consideration any learning difficulties or disabilities.

Background

Thirty percent of the adult US population is comprised of baby boomers, a generation of individuals turned 65 starting in 2011 (Kuerbis et al. 2014). Longer life expectancies and the size of this group contribute to estimates of the number of older adults almost doubling in size from 40.3 to...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Silberman School of Social Work, Hunter College of the City University of New York, 2180 Third Avenue, Rm 435, New York, NY, 10035, USA

    Alexis Kuerbis

  2. University of Maryland School of Social Work, 525 West Redwood Street, Baltimore, MD, 21201, USA

    Paul Sacco

  3. Division of Geriatric Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA

    Alison A. Moore

Authors
  1. Alexis Kuerbis
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  2. Paul Sacco
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  3. Alison A. Moore
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alexis Kuerbis .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

    Nancy A. Pachana

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© 2017 Springer Science+Business Media Singapore

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Kuerbis, A., Sacco, P., Moore, A.A. (2017). Substance Use and Abuse. In: Pachana, N.A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Geropsychology. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-082-7_165

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