RESUMEN
Alcohol misuse among older adults is increasing, with evidence of its adverse effects on health. However, healthcare professionals and patients may be uncomfortable about broaching the subject for a variety of reasons. This article provides an overview of assessment, treatment and aftercare options for older people who misuse alcohol. It highlights that all healthcare professionals are responsible for raising the issue of substance misuse if appropriate and referring to specialist services if required.
RESUMEN
In acute hospital settings, alcohol withdrawal often causes significant management problems and complicates a wide variety of concurrent conditions, placing a huge burden on the NHS. A significant number of critical incidents around patients who were undergoing detoxification in a general hospital setting led to the need for a project to implement and evaluate an evidence-based approach to the management of alcohol detoxification-a project that included a pre-intervention case note audit, the implementation of an evidence-based symptom-triggered detoxification protocol, and a post-intervention case note audit. This change in practice resulted in an average reduction of almost 60% in length of hospital stay and a 66% reduction in the amount of chlordiazepoxide used in detoxification, as well as highlighting that 10% of the sample group did not display any signs of withdrawal and did not require any medication. Even with these reductions, no patient post-intervention developed any severe signs of withdrawal phenomena, such as seizures or delirium tremens. The savings to the trust (The Pennine Acute Hospital Trust) are obvious,but the development of a consistent, quality service will lead to fewer long-term negative effects for patients that can be caused by detoxification. This work is a project evaluation of a locally implemented strategy, which, it was hypothesised,would improve care by providing an individualised treatment plan for the management of alcohol withdrawal symptoms.
