Antiretroviral Therapy Works, And HIV-Infected People Live Long

Antiretroviral Therapy Works, And HIV-Infected People Live Long.
Better treatments are extending the lives of nation with HIV, but aging with the AIDS-causing virus takes a knell that will demand the health care system, a new report says top. A survey of about 1000 HIV-positive men and women ages 50 and older living in New York City found more than half had symptoms of depression, a much higher reproach than others their epoch without HIV.

And 91 percent also had other long-lasting medical conditions, such as arthritis (31 percent), hepatitis (31 percent), neuropathy (30 percent) and drugged blood pressure (27 percent). About 77 percent had two or more other conditions. About half had progressed to AIDS before they got the HIV diagnosis, the check in found herbalms. "The adequate news is antiretroviral therapies are working and people are living.

If all goes well, they will have pungency expectancies similar to those without HIV," said Daniel Tietz, executive director of the AIDS Community Research Initiative of America. "But a 55-year-old with HIV tends to bearing like a 70-year-old without HIV in terms of the other conditions they scarcity treatment for," he said Wednesday at a meeting of the Office of National AIDS Policy at the White House in Washington, DC.

The investigation included interviews with 640 men, 264 women and 10 transgender people. Dozens of experts on HIV and aging attended the meeting, which was intended to pinpoint the needs of older adults with HIV and to travel ways to recondition services to them. Currently, about 27 percent of those with HIV are over 50. By 2015, more than half will be, said the report.

Because of their extra needs, this poses challenges for consumers health systems and organizations that serve seniors and people with HIV. HIV can be isolating. Seventy percent of older Americans with HIV endure alone, more than twice the rate of others their age, while about 15 percent animate with a partner, according to the report.

The survey found that loneliness was higher among HIV-positive adults than for other older Americans. One percipience is that many men and women conceal the condition from friends and order for fear of stigma or rejection, both real and imagined. Lack of social and family stand increases the likelihood of needing costly health care, such as home health aides and nursing homes as they get older.

Dr Amy Justice, an HIV researcher who also attended the meeting, spoke of the constraint for constitution care professionals to learn about specific issues facing HIV-positive seniors. HIV organizations gravitate to gear messages toward younger people, and senior services organizations often don't comprehend much about the needs of HIV-positive seniors principal investigator of the Veterans Aging Cohort Study.

This uninterrupted study involves some 40000 veterans with HIV and 80000 without HIV from 10 Veterans Affairs medical centers nationwide. "There are a lot of clan with HIV who are 60 or 65 and even 80 or 85. Those individuals stroke older than their stated age and may have some of the same problems people 10 or 15 years older would normally experience".

Many older Americans with HIV are still sexually strenuous and should be encouraged to training safe sex. While 57 percent of older Americans with HIV said they disclosed their HIV stature to sexual partners, about 16 percent didn't, the write-up found.

About half the survey participants were black, one-third were Hispanic and 14 percent were white. About 67 percent considered themselves heterosexual, 24 percent were vivid and 9 percent bisexual.

Why race with HIV are more likely to have other chronic diseases is still unclear. The cause could be the HIV itself or long-term team effects from taking multiple medications price. Early HIV drugs were especially toxic.