Substance use can greatly influence an individual’s health in almost all dimensions of wellness. It can be encouraged by social isolation, depression, environment, and a lack of knowledge in how to cope. The baby boomers are the current generation of elders who grew up through the 1960’s and 1970’s, a period of realization regarding alcohol and drugs. Since that time, alcohol and drug use has been monitored due to the significant identification of increased rates of substance use disorders. Although the baby boomer generation of people 65 years and older is only 15% of our population, they account for nearly one third of substance users (Church, et al., 2010). Not only does this give insight to our future generations habits, it also creates
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They also did clinical measures to truly complete the assessment adequately. Although there was a comprehensive geriatric assessment for all, which included signs of depression, three other tests were formed to measure alcohol use and dependence, perceived self-health, and pain. The CAGE questionnaire can be used among diverse populations and is a reliable self-report with four questions pertaining to excessive alcohol abuse, dependence, or consumption. The self-rated health question is essentially a 5-point scaled self-assessment towards your self-perceived and subjective morbidity, typically expressing negative health outcomes. Lastly, the Wong-Baker pain rating scale can be used with moderate cognitive functioning older adults to express their current pain on a 5-point scale. (Hansen, et al., …show more content…
This said, I would ask the interests and activities the adult enjoys doing and encourage them to participate in them with friends or in the community to prevent social isolation and encourage physical activity. Forming a sense of purpose, by helping the grandkids or volunteering would keep them busy. Education of the correlation between alcohol abuse and depression for the current older population and especially the younger generations needs to be addressed. That said, more prevention and intervention programs need to be publicized as accessible resources for all, which could also help decrease the stigma of alcohol abuse. As this correlation and health-related problem is new to the older population, hopefully we can quickly apply the information we collect and analyze from the baby boomer generation to lead to a better quality of life and happiness in old age for the following
They also did clinical measures to truly complete the assessment adequately. Although there was a comprehensive geriatric assessment for all, which included signs of depression, three other tests were formed to measure alcohol use and dependence, perceived self-health, and pain. The CAGE questionnaire can be used among diverse populations and is a reliable self-report with four questions pertaining to excessive alcohol abuse, dependence, or consumption. The self-rated health question is essentially a 5-point scaled self-assessment towards your self-perceived and subjective morbidity, typically expressing negative health outcomes. Lastly, the Wong-Baker pain rating scale can be used with moderate cognitive functioning older adults to express their current pain on a 5-point scale. (Hansen, et al., …show more content…
This said, I would ask the interests and activities the adult enjoys doing and encourage them to participate in them with friends or in the community to prevent social isolation and encourage physical activity. Forming a sense of purpose, by helping the grandkids or volunteering would keep them busy. Education of the correlation between alcohol abuse and depression for the current older population and especially the younger generations needs to be addressed. That said, more prevention and intervention programs need to be publicized as accessible resources for all, which could also help decrease the stigma of alcohol abuse. As this correlation and health-related problem is new to the older population, hopefully we can quickly apply the information we collect and analyze from the baby boomer generation to lead to a better quality of life and happiness in old age for the following