September 18, 2023
By August Ryan; reviewed for medical accuracy by Elliot Goodenough, MD, PhD
September 18 is National HIV/AIDS and Aging Awareness Day, which highlights HIV among people aged 50 and older. Physicians at the Partnership Comprehensive Care Practice help patients with HIV factor the illness into their aging process.
When HIV was identified in the early 1980s, patients typically died within years of diagnosis. Today, HIV testing and treatment options are of higher quality and more easily available, helping many to live into their 80s with HIV.
“Many of my patients view their HIV as a manageable chronic condition,” said Elliot Goodenough, MD, PhD, a physician at the Partnership. “Regardless of their HIV status, we can talk about aging as a normal life process, and as these folks accumulate other health conditions, HIV is often no longer their biggest health priority.”
Marla Gold, MD, founded the Partnership 30 years ago after seeing how stigma and other barriers to medical care helped fuel the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. Physicians began reporting cases of what we now know as HIV in 1981. However, testing would not become available until the middle of the decade, and effective treatment wasn’t available until the mid 1990s.
Today, one in four adults living with HIV in the United States are aged 50 or older, and people in that age range also make up 18 percent of new HIV diagnoses, according to The AIDS Institute. Effective HIV treatment improves the lives of people newly diagnosed with HIV and those who were diagnosed years ago.
“More and easier options have simplified treatment for many of my patients,” Goodenough said. “It’s a privilege to work at a time when the relative ease of treatment can change people’s perspective on living with HIV.”
HIV treatment involves taking antiretroviral therapy (ART), a combination of medications that stop the virus from replicating. ART formulations now include once-a-day pill options and long-acting injectable medication.
If ART is taken as prescribed, it usually has few side effects and can reduce HIV to an undetectable level in the blood, which prevents HIV transmission.
However, people living with HIV still have higher rates of illnesses associated with aging, such as heart disease.
“Our conversations on aging include some ambiguity,” Goodenough said. “I often see folks assessing their current treatment as better but not perfect. I’ve learned a lot about resilience, resignation and complex gratitude from my patients.”
Regardless of your age, the Partnership can help you access HIV testing, prevention and treatment options. Contact the practice.
Learn more about the Partnership’s upcoming anniversary.