The Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC), which serves 1,600 HIV-positive patients, has the largest HIV patient population of any VAMC in the country. The median age of these patients is 52.
…”[W]e have this older age group… being found positive,” says David Rimland, MD, former chief of infectious diseases at the Atlanta VAMC and Emory emeritus professor of medicine. “We’re also diagnosing more people in their 60s and 70s. Older people are having sex but may not know that they are HIV-infected or that their partner is infected.”
The VA has been proactive in treating HIV-positive patients, following up to make sure they have no detectable viruses, and providing counseling. In turn, mortality rates decreased from 25.9 per 100 veterans in 1994 to 1.2 per 100 veterans in 2012. “We’ve done a great job of keeping people alive,” Rimland says. “This older population is doing very well from an HIV standpoint.”
But now, they are dealing with other diseases as well as the challenges of aging. “Can you imagine if you were diagnosed 20 years ago when you were 40? We didn’t have much to offer back then, in terms of treatment, so you thought you would be dead in five years,” he says. “Then, suddenly, you’re doing great, you’re getting older, and you hadn’t planned on that at all.” Continue reading
Related Links
• Aging with HIV (Emory Medicine magazine)
• Aging with HIV: New frontier, new challenges (Emory News Center blog)
• Atlanta VA Medical Center
• Division of Infectious Diseases, Emory University Department of Medicine
• Read Dr. Rimland’s faculty biography
• Emory University Department of Medicine
• Emory University School of Medicine
