Giving Compass' Take:

• Jenny Gold shares the story of John Evard, a senior who became addicted to prescribed opioids. Evard is one of many seniors facing addiction, although most opioid concern is over young people.

• How can philanthropy identify and address the opioid crisis among seniors? How is the opioid crisis impacting your community? 

• Learn about another group that has been suffering from the opioid epidemic, Native Americans. 

It took a lot of convincing to get John Evard into rehab. He was reluctant to give up the medications that he was certain were keeping his pain at bay. But ultimately he agreed — and seven days into his stay at the Las Vegas Recovery Center, the nausea and aching muscles of opioid withdrawal are finally beginning to fade.

As the nation grapples with a devastating opioid epidemic, concerns have primarily focused on young people buying drugs on the street. But many elderly people in America also have a drug problem. Over the past several decades, physicians have increasingly prescribed older patients medication to address chronic pain from arthritis, cancer, neurological diseases and other illnesses that become more common in later life. And sometimes those opioids hurt more than they help.

A recent study of Medicare recipients found that in 2011, about 15 percent were prescribed an opioid when they were discharged from the hospital; three months later, 42 percent were still taking the pain medicine.

In 2009, the American Geriatric Society came out strongly in favor of opioids, updating its guidelines on pain management to urge doctors to consider using opioids for older patients who have moderate to severe pain. The panel cited evidence that seniors were less likely than others to become addicted.

Dr. Mel Pohl, medical director of the Las Vegas Recovery Center, calls that conclusion a "horrible misconception."

"There's no factual, scientific basis for that," he says. "The drug takes over in the brain. It doesn't matter how old the brain is."

Read the full article about opioids and the elderly by Jenny Gold at NPR.