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March 1, 2002 -- As many as 20% of senior citizens -- especially those who are depressed or who suffer dementia -- use herbal supplements to self-treat their symptoms, according to new research. It's the first time a study has looked at the use of alternative medicine among the elderly, and researchers say the findings are troubling.
"What's alarming is that so many patients in our study felt these preparations were harmless, even though they were not certain what they contained," says study author Helen C. Kales, MD, of the University of Michigan, in a news release.
Kales presented her findings this week at the annual meeting of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry.
Seniors tend to be the biggest users of prescription medications, and doctors are concerned that many older adults may be unaware of dangerous drug interactions that could occur when herbal supplements are added to the mix. That problem is compounded by the fact that the study found the majority of patients did not discuss the use of alternative medicine with their healthcare providers. Instead, patients said they considered these preparations natural and harmless.
The study examined alternative medicine use among 82 elderly veterans with depression and/or dementia and 56 of their caregivers. Depression and dementia are the most common forms of mental illness among the elderly.
Researchers found 20% of the patients were using herbal supplements. Of those who reported using alternative medicine, 33.3% used ginkgo biloba, 26.7% used St. John's wort, 6.7 used ginseng, and 20% took other herbal preparations.
Among their caregivers, most of whom were elderly spouses, 16% also reported using alternative medicine -- primarily supplements. That's higher than the 14% usage rate reported by the general public in a 2000 telephone survey published in The Journal of the American Medical Association.
"The results merit further study and suggest that seniors may have entered the alternative medicine market in a big way, much bigger than we thought," says Kales in the release.