HEALTH Elderly have tough time breaking silence on AIDS

About 10 percent of HIV/AIDS cases involve people 50 and older.
SCRIPPS HOWARD
He would rather talk about his days in the military and show off his Army regalia than talk about living with AIDS.
At 65, AIDS is just one more thing Lee, who asked to be identified only by his middle name, has to take medication for, along with "high sugar, high blood pressure and my heart," he said.
This particular morning, the father of 10 grown children said, he forgot to take his medicines.
"That one there is my AIDS medicine, and then that one keeps my blood sugar down," he explained, pointing to the different bottles lining the top of his refrigerator.
"I have seen this juice you can take to clean out your system," Lee said. "I haven't bought any yet, but I hear it can get rid of the HIV."
Not much to say
He abruptly stopped to push his stiff, aching knees and legs out of a living-room chair, then headed down a short hall to his bedroom. He came back with military medals in his hand.
Unlike his vivid memories of being in the military, the details of how he became infected are fuzzy. Lee believes a woman who had gonorrhea also had HIV and infected him more than a decade ago.
"The less I talk about [having AIDS]," he said, "the less I think about it, so I don't talk about it."
Such vows of silence are allowing the AIDS epidemic to creep into the bedrooms of grandmas and grandpas, said O.H. Oliveira, who specializes in geriatric clinical and medical psychology.
Growing problem
About 10 percent of all people diagnosed with HIV/AIDS in the United States are 50 and older, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports. That's 75,000 Americans.
During the 1990s, the number of infected Americans older than 50 quintupled, the CDC said.
When the virus is present in the elderly population, the risk of dementia increases from 6 percent to 22 percent because the virus allows the signs connected with Alzheimer's disease to build up, said Oliveira.
Coupled with the tendency of older patients to be more forgetful anyway, this extra risk could increase new infections or cause those already infected to be lax about taking their medications or keeping follow-up medical appointments.
Oliveira said that even before an HIV diagnosis is given, a barrier of silence exists in a doctor's office. Many doctors don't talk about sex or a patient's sexual history after the patient reaches a certain age.
In fact, a Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that just fewer than 40 percent of people between 50 and 64 have been tested for HIV; only 14 percent of those 65 and older have.
Among 50- to 64-year-olds, 30 percent have talked to their doctor about HIV; 37 percent have talked to a partner.