Newswise — Lonely, older adults are nearly twice as likely to use opioids to ease pain and two-and-a-half times more likely to use sedatives and anti-anxiety medications, putting themselves at risk for drug dependency, impaired attention, falls and other accidents, and further cognitive impairment, according to a study by researchers at UC San Francisco.
The study found that just over half of 6,000 respondents in a nationally representative survey of seniors living independently were not lonely, while 40 percent were moderately lonely, and 7 percent were highly lonely.
The proportion of seniors in each group who had prescriptions for opioids and anti-anxiety medications and sedatives, which included drugs like Valium, Xanax, BuSpar and Ambien, correlated with their degree of loneliness, according to the study, which publishes in JAMA Internal Medicine on June 26, 2021.
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