Medical marijuana helps 91 percent of older adults improve their pain, insomnia and mood or behavioral symptoms, a new study has found.
The research involved 124 people over the age of 65 who received medical cannabis from a specialized practice in Colombia and whose symptoms were measured at baseline, 44 of whom had a follow-up visit after three months.
Most of the participants had not previously used marijuana, and the most frequent diagnoses they presented with were pain-related and musculoskeletal disorders, cancer and neurodegenerative and non-degenerative neurological disorders—with their top therapeutic objectives being relief of pain, mood/behavioral issues, insomnia and motor symptoms.
Patients’ symptoms were recorded by treating physicians and then coded by researchers on a four-point scale (0 = absent, 1 = mild, 2 = moderate, and 3 = severe), “classified according to its documented impact on patients’ autonomy, basic and instrumental activities of daily living, and participation in meaningful daily activities,” the paper said.
“Symptom severity decreased significantly across the three main symptom domains, with improvement in approximately 90% of patients.”
Symptom improvement was defined as a reduction of at least one point in severity relative to baseline, and 91 percent of participants met that threshold, the study, which has not yet been published in a
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