[Benzodiazepine addiction and symptoms of anxiety and depression in elderly subjects]

The relative works to the psychopathological aspects of benzodiazepines (BZD) addiction in elderly persons make the object of a large debate because the question of addiction remains whole. They concern: 1) the influence of age on the level of consumption of the BZD. The research permits to clear 4 explanatory major factors of the relation observed between age and the consumption of BZD: a) the morbidity increased of the aged people, b) the impact of the painful life events, c) the social isolation, d) the weight of the medical prescription; 2) the concepts of dependence (evolution of the definitions, type of physical, psychic or psychopathological dependencies) and of addiction (definitions, place in the international classifications, psychopathological perspective); 3) the reports of the anxiety and the depression with BZD addiction in elderly persons. To the look of these works, the objectives of this present study were to examine the variability of BZD addiction on the one hand within a population weakened by the effects of age (apparition of a chronic illness, for example) and on the other hand the relations that the anxious and depressive symptoms maintain with BZD addiction in elderly persons. Two self-questionnaires were administered: 1) BZD addiction scale, 2) Hospital Anxiety Depression Scale (HAD) to 28 elderly (18 women and 10 men; mean age is 73.25 years). To the exit of this work, the results put in evidence go in the sense of our hypotheses but cannot be generalized to the set of the elderly consumers of BZD, they let appear that age, the depression and the association anxiety/depression predict meaningful manner BZD addiction. Indeed, with regard to age, the polypathology as well as the changes of life induced by the aging process involved BZD addiction in old people. The old age can engender a depression that results in addictive behavior. However, anxiety alone is not experienced before drug addiction in a significant way. This result can explain itself by the fact that the anxiety is a symptom of depression. The present research is unique in several important aspects. First, the study shows that drug addiction in old people cannot be reduced to physiological addiction on product but understood in terms of a complex process requiring an analysis of the psychological addiction on product. Second, BZD addiction in the elderly acts as a psychological/existential medical care. Future research is needed to examine the psychological and psychopathological links that old people maintain with their drug medication.