This paper focuses on the prevalence and common characteristics of the alcoholic elderly, the medical complications that can occur with alcoholism in the elderly, and how these complications pertain to physical therapy. Many studies have varying statistics on the prevalence of alcoholism in the elderly. This is most likely due to the lack of universal terminology for words such as alcoholism, heavy drinking, and alcohol abuse. Certain characteristics are found to be related to alcoholism in the elderly. The prevalence of elderly alcoholic women may increase in the future as it is now more socially acceptable for women to drink and women generally live longer than men.
Alcohol can have a greater affect on an elder compared with a younger adult.
This is partly due to the decreased rate of alcohol absorption in the elderly. The elder has a decrease in lean body mass and an increase in fat tissue which causes a decrease in body water content. This means, in general, if the same number of alcoholic beverages are consumed by an elder and a young adult of the same sex, alcohol will stay in the body longer and have a greater effect on the elder. The physiological effects of alcohol on body systems are the same in the elder and younger adult, but in the elder these effects can be significantly increased due to the natural aging process and other age-related pathological diseases. The musculoskeletal system is just one of the body systems affected by alcohol use.