Addiction Among the Elderly
Substances affect older adults differently than others. Geriatrician Lauren Kelly, MD, discusses how she helps her elderly patients address addiction, noting that treatment is a matter of helping them gain control over their substance abuse. This can mean stopping use altogether, or it can mean using substances a safer or more moderate fashion.
[00:00:00] From the Mount Sinai Health System, this is Road to Resilience,
[00:00:06] On this episode we welcome Lauren Kelly, PhD, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
[00:00:17] Dr. Kelly's professional expertise and passion is in the care of older adult and seriously ill patients with substance use disorders, including patients living with substance use and chronic pain.
[00:00:29] She leads the Geriatrics, Palliative, Addiction, and Pain Collaborative at Mount Sinai, an interprofessional meeting to discuss complex cases, improve care coordination, and foster learning in the management of patients with substance use disorders.
[00:00:43] Dr. Kelly is also currently developing a first-of-its-kind geriatric co-management program at Mount Sinai's Behavioral Health Center which offers integrated psychiatry, addiction and primary care all under one roof. Her perspective comes at a time when rates of substance use and substance-related harms have skyrocketed in the older adult population.
[00:01:03] We're delighted to have Dr. Kelly on the show.
[00:01:06] Stephen Calabria: Dr. Lauren Kelly, welcome to Road to Resilience.
[00:01:09] Lauren Kelly: Thank you. Thank you for having me.
[00:01:11] Stephen Calabria: Could you give us a overview of your background?
[00:01:14] Lauren Kelly: Sure. I am a geriatrics and palliative medicine doctor in the Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine at Mount Sinai, and I do outpatient palliative care, so I take care of patients with serious illness.
[00:01:27] I work at the Cancer Center up here at Mount Sinai, and I also see patients in primary care at the REACH Clinic, which is a clinic that cares for patients who use drugs.
[00:01:36] And so we do a lot of management of things like opioid use disorder, alcohol use disorder. And I see older patients and patients with serious illness in that practice. So I tend to veer towards that older adults, and patients that have life limiting illness.