OLYMPIA – Forty-plus years after they partied in the ’60s and ’70s a la Woodstock, baby boomers who never really let go of drugs or alcohol are streaming into Olympia-area nursing homes for medical help.
But officials say their addictions are making it hard for themselves and for the nursing homes to cope.
“I’m getting three or four referrals (from hospitals) a week,” said Dean DeMulling, referral manager for the Evergreen Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Olympia. “These are for people whose principal diagnosis is chemical dependency but who also have a medical illness.”
The patients, many of whom are younger than the traditional 65-and-older nursing home population, are allowed to leave the facility, as well as have guests. That means they’re at risk to go out and drink or take drugs, and then come back and cause behavior problems with staff and other patients, DeMulling said.
The chemically dependent boomers often have nowhere else to go because of their lack of sobriety, medical problems, financial issues or need to take pain medication.
“Nursing homes are not geared to handle this issue,” DeMulling said. “This is a long-term behavioral problem.”
Thurston County, which launched a program this summer to address the situation, is not alone in this trend. Federal health officials estimate that 1.7 million Americans older than 50 are addicted to drugs, with that number expected to climb to 4.4 million by 2020, said Kate Mruz of the county’s Public Health and Social Services Department.
“Chemical dependency treatment centers, inpatient and outpatient, are dealing with an unexpected influx of older adults who need help,” Mruz said in a report this year.
With Thurston and Mason counties’ aging populations expected to double in the next 15 years, at least 10 percent of those older adults will be drug- or alcohol-addicted, Mruz said.
In addition, the area’s baby boomer population is growing as fast or faster than the general senior population, according to the state Office of Financial Management. In 1990, there were 12,416 adults aged 55 to 64 in Thurston County, compared with 25,083 in 2005 – a doubling.
Todd Nelson, of the state Department of Social and Health Services, said the Legislature in July 2005 allocated $33 million statewide to expand treatment programs for seniors who are alcoholic or chemically dependent. Of that amount, $8.3 million was earmarked for programs to keep chemically dependent adults out of nursing homes or to help those in nursing homes get appropriate housing.
So far, about 30 people in the 12-county region that includes Thurston County have received help through the programs financed by the state money. Nelson believes the need is rising.
“Baby boomers, who bring in an array of past drug history, and who have some comfort with some of those things not acceptable with the Depression-era generation, are causing the increase,” Nelson said. “No question about it.”
Also needing help are seniors who are living longer but whose bodies can’t handle alcohol or drugs anymore, Nelson said.
“We like to think that seniors, retired people, don’t have those problems,” Nelson added. “But there’s a lot of morally pejorative issues around being chemically dependent in that group.”
Disabled people compose a third group of chemically dependent adults in nursing homes, he said. They’re often younger than the general population at the homes.
In the new Thurston County program, counselor Jean Bohling visits chemically dependent patients at both Evergreen and its sister facility, Fir Lane Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Shelton, at least twice weekly. She has worked with about a dozen people since she started in August.
Some are referred by Bohling to inpatient detoxification programs; she develops a relationship with others in order to help them find treatment and a place to go.
“This is like a Band-Aid on a bleeding artery – but it’s a start,” DeMulling said.
Bohling is employed by Northwest Resources, a consulting firm that contracts with the county and the state to offer counseling services. The $52,000 for the program’s first year pays Bohling’s salary.
Bohling, 57, said she often must overcome resistance and mistrust before the person agrees to speak with her.
“One person said to me, ‘I know that there are others like me,’ ” Bohling recalled. “She said, ‘Where are all the others that were with me at Woodstock or Altamont?’ “
Some of the baby boomers carried on reasonably well through their 30s and 40s, perhaps taking drugs or drinking recreationally but still managing to raise families and hold down jobs, Bohling said. Then, in their 50s, they might have a back injury, car accident or a mini-stroke, and they end up in a hospital for acute medical care.
After three days, the hospital discharges them to a nursing home to continue their medical recovery – but there’s a catch: They still have their latent addictions and are being re-exposed to drugs through hospitalization.
“They had sobriety, but then the injury puts them on pain meds, and that might trigger them to become actively alcoholic again,” Bohling said.
The influx of chemically dependent boomers is “just the tip of the iceberg,” she said.
“There is a tidal wave coming of boomers with these issues. We need to have chemical dependency professionals in place to meet the need.”
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