Treatment of Alcohol Problems in the Elderly

With the aging of western societies in the coming years combined with increasing alcohol consumption among elderly, the number of elderly with alcohol problems is expected to rise considerably.

Elderly patients are often lonely; suffer from feelings of loss, fear to be a burden on their children and on society, and feel powerless. On the surface their alcohol related problems seem less severe that those of the middle-aged patients while in reality co-morbidity and social issues complicate alcohol dependency.

Currently, no specific treatment tailored for alcohol use disorder among elderly is available. Consequently they receive either no treatment, are given brief advising from the general practitioner or are referred to treatment at specialized treatment institutions with no specific treatment for elderly.

The investigators propose a study aimed at developing and testing an outpatient behavior therapy program for alcohol use disorders for seniors (60 years and older), which - if effective - can be easily implemented in routine care. Three centers from Denmark, Germany and USA (New Mexico) will participate. All three centers have a long and extensive experience with alcohol treatment and alcohol research. Patients fulfilling the DSM 5 criteria for alcohol use disorder are eligible for the study.

After informed consent participants will be randomly assigned to either Motivational Enhancement Therapy (MET), four sessions/one session per week or MET followed by Community Re-enforcement Approach (CRA), eight sessions/one session per week - thus 12 weeks of treatment in total. 50% will receive MET and 50% MET+CRA. Primary outcome is percentage of patients with abstinence or controlled use (alcohol intake of equivalent blood alcohol content equal to or less than 0.5‰.). A total of 1000 patients will be enrolled. Participants will be assessed with a battery of international validated instruments measuring drinking pattern as well as key elements of treatment.

Participants are assessed before initiation of treatment, at the end of MET treatment (four weeks), at the end of MET+CRA treatment (12 weeks), at 6 months, and at 12 months.