Ageing with HIV – An Emotional and Physical Rollercoaster Ride

Lisa Franchi December 02, 2013

A study of people over 50 living with HIV by the Terence Higgins Trust, an HIV charity, found that older people with HIV are financially disadvantaged compared with their peers. They also tend to have serious worries about money, poor health, housing and social care.

According to Lisa Power, policy director at THT, the reason for this is that many people became ill and had to give up work after their diagnosis. Meanwhile, others sold up, cashed in their pensions, went round the world and waited to die. And as ‘brilliant’ antiretroviral drugs started to prolong the lives of people with HIV, Power argued that "benefits were cut for people who hadn’t made provision for their old age, leaving many of the older HIV group living on a basic state pension”.

"We found huge poverty in our study, particularly among those who thought they had a death sentence. Now we’re coming round to understanding that people with HIV have a normal life expectancy."

She said for people recently diagnosed with HIV, they can carry on working and even raise a family. But for those who have been diagnosed back in the 1980s, the HIV journey has been ‘considerably more traumatic.’

HIV effects on the elderly

Doctors still do not fully understand the impact of HIV on ageing. Some health problems experienced by older adults who have the infection may be due to the side effects of treatments they received, which could be worse than the virus itself. However, they are generally at a higher risk of cardiovascular disease, heart disease, stroke, and cancer.

Dr David Asboe, chairman of the British HIV Association, said more than half of the people with HIV he has seen are over the age of 50 and some are even in their 80s. "The earlier they are diagnosed, the earlier we can get them into treatment and that’s important. If there is a delay then that’s when the mortality risk increases."

He said the psychological effects of HIV in this group are all too obvious. "They should be able to work, but there is a real loss of confidence, and it can change the way people consider relationships with their family and wider society."

HIV charities say that healthcare providers, such as GPs, need to understand more about HIV and home carers should be given more training as too often; patients don’t have the confidence to disclose their status to their doctors.

Power emphasised the need for more public awareness about HIV. "One group thinks there is a cure for it, another thinks it’s a death sentence. The reality is that people with HIV have a managed, chronic condition - but they also have a life."

Currently, there are around 19,000 adults aged over 50 receiving care for human immunodeficiency virus in the UK, many of them kept alive due to improvements in drug treatments.

Source of this article:

How older people with HIV are facing the future