Geriatric Medicine

A recent CDC report said that drug overdoses among our seniors have more than tripled over the past 20 years. “It’s not surprising that seniors are struggling with this, because concurrent with this is epidemic levels of loneliness and isolation for seniors,” said Dr. Paul Simeone, the Chief Medical Executive for Behavioral Health at Lee Health.

A few factors can be attributed to this rise. First, our society already had mental health issues before the pandemic. People drank more during the height of Covid. The CDC says alcohol-induced deaths among seniors rose more than 18% from 2019 to 2020. “I talk to people all the time about the traumatic effects of Covid. It’s still with us. It’s going to be with us for a long time,” said Dr. Simeone.

Dr. Simeone also said there is a high amount of ambient anxiety in our culture. “The third factor is a level of social divisiveness that I think rivals pre-Civil War, and Reconstruction period.”

Locally, many of us are still dealing with the impacts of Hurricane Ian. “Ian took all of that and layered on another layer of local distress,” said Dr. Simeone.

It’s important to develop our coping skills to be able to adapt to difficult circumstances. Dr. Simeone said we should check in with loved ones and ask how their doing. “Look for changes from baseline behavior.” Help is available. You can learn more by searching for behavioral health on leehealth.org.