Source: American Society of Anesthesiologists
Summary:
Overdose deaths from fentanyl mixed with stimulants have skyrocketed among seniors, increasing 9,000% in just eight years. Once thought to affect mainly the young, the opioid epidemic’s fourth wave now engulfs older adults too. Cocaine and methamphetamine are the leading culprits, and experts warn that multi-drug use makes these overdoses especially lethal. Doctors are urged to educate patients and caregivers on prevention and safer pain management.
The study info:
To conduct the study, researchers examined 404,964 death certificates listing fentanyl as a cause of death from 1999 to 2023, using data from the CDC Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (WONDER) system. Of those deaths, 17,040 involved adults 65 and older, while 387,924 were among adults aged 25 to 64.
Between 2015 and 2023, fentanyl-related deaths rose from 264 to 4,144 among older adults (a 1,470% increase) and from 8,513 to 64,694 among younger adults (a 660% increase). Within the older population, deaths involving both fentanyl and stimulants grew from 8.7% (23 of 264 fentanyl deaths) in 2015 to 49.9% (2,070 of 4,144) in 2023 -- a staggering 9,000% rise. In comparison, among younger adults, fentanyl-stimulant deaths rose from 21.3% (1,812 of 8,513) to 59.3% (38,333 of 64,694) over the same period, a 2,115% increase.
Researchers chose to highlight 2015 and 2023 in their analysis because 2015 marked the beginning of the epidemic's fourth wave, when fentanyl-stimulant deaths among older adults were at their lowest, and 2023 represented the most recent year of CDC data available.
The researchers noted that the rise in fentanyl deaths involving stimulants in older adults began to sharply rise in 2020, while deaths linked to other substances stayed the same or declined. Cocaine and methamphetamines were the most common stimulants paired with fentanyl among the older adults studied, surpassing alcohol, heroin, and benzodiazepines such as Xanax and Valium.