Over the past decade clinicians have become more aware of the problem of substance abuse (SA) in individuals with mental illness. Concurrent comorbidity has become the rule among psychiatric inpatients. About a quarter of patient's admissions ages 18-65 in the Abarbanel mental health center (MHC) are with SA (Natan, Gimelfarb, Barak & Baruch, 2005). The changing demography shows an ever increasing percentage of elderly in mental hospitals, however, information about dual diagnosis in elderly is unclear!!

1. 1. To explore the trends of dual diagnosis elderly patients (DDEP) in Abarbanel MHC in the period of June 2003 to June 2005.

2. 2. To compare the admission's profile of DDEP to non-DDEP according to socio-demographic and clinical characteristics.

Descriptive analysis of consecutive admissions: men and women ages 60 and more years (06/2003–06/2005) and laboratory analysis of urine.

Twenty seven of 535 admissions of elderly inpatients (5.1%) were with SA. There is a tendency of increasing of DDEP rate: in the 1st year the rate was 3.4% and in the 2nd year–6.8% (p<.07).

Profile of DDEP and non-DDEP admissions is significantly different according to place of birth, gender, age, family status, patient's suicide attempts, physical diagnosis.

There is decreasing of SA with age, but the phenomenon is fairly frequent among elderly, previously “young” DDEP. More strict assessment of SA patterns is recommended. Profile of DDEP's admissions is more complex then non-DDEP's admissions. There is significant clinical need to appropriate approach for DDEP