Benzodiazepines Consumption: Does Dependence Vary with Age?

Abstract

We have compared two groups of chronic benzodiazepines (or zolpidem/zopiclone) users: "Seniors," aged 65 years or more, and "Adults," aged less than 65 years. The study took place in the Pays de Loire region. The questionnaire assesses dependence based on items from the DSM-IV. The analysis was based on 176 Senior questionnaires and 212 Adult questionnaires. Whereas Senior patients take benzodiazepines routinely with little negative consequences, Adults suffer from underlying psychological trouble, mention a higher consumption than planned, which causes negative consequences. 35.2% of Seniors are dependent on benzodiazepines versus 49.8% of Adults.

Combatting the misuse of benzodiazepines and related Z drugs in French general practice: a clinical review

“…In particular, patients with a high prevalence of mental health problems are high consumers of BZDs. 7,[13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] Relevance to general practice…”

“…14 Older patients are more sensitive to the potential adverse effects of BZDs. 15 In subjects with Alzheimer's disease and related diseases, a high consumption of antipsychotics was found. These patients have a greater dependence on care systems, increased hospitalisation rates, and are at greater risk of overprescribing, polyconsumption, and worsening vulnerability.…”

Benzodiazepines Dependence: Addiction to Legally Prescribed Substances

“…In the present study, the results of this study are presented in Figure 1. In addition to the anxiolytic and sleep inducing action, and since they reduce neuronal excitability, they are also used for other clinical purposes [27,44], namely hypnotics, anticonvulsants, muscle relaxants, sedation and the use of a single-dose, preoperative, among other uses [5,9,11,25,27,30,43,44].…”

“…Despite the evidence of the psychotherapeutic intervention in anxiety, namely Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) [19][20][21][22], anxious patients are more likely to choose pharmacotherapy than psychotherapy [23][24][25]. However, the use of pharmacotherapy, specifically the use of BZDs requires a number of precautions [26], since they are only safe and effective for short-term treatment, and its long-term use may lead to development of tolerance and dependence [3,5,6,9,11,26,27] and to be able to present countless consequences and undesirable effects [5,9,12,18,25,[28][29][30][31].…”

“…In addition to the risk of dependence, there is much evidence that long-term use is dangerous [5,28,50]. The review of several studies [5,7,9,12,18,25,28,29,30,51], and the most frequent and common risks and effects of the various benzodiazepines, we find that they can be psychological, such as agitation, hallucinations, aggression, anxiety, depression, hostility, irritability, learning take varies, so the shorter the half-life, the more often one has to take the substance to maintain a stable concentration in the organism, this frequency of taking is translated into a greater probability of dependence [48,31].…”