Geriatric HIV expertise needed
Dr. Justice called the study’s analysis a useful addition to the literature and noted its implications for training.
“One of the biggest challenges with this large bolus of folks who are aging with HIV,” she said, “is to what extent should they be cared for by the people who have been caring for them – largely infectious disease docs – and to what extent should we really be transitioning their care to people with more experience with aging.”
Another key question, Dr. Justice said, relates to nursing homes and assisted-living facilities, whose staff may lack experience caring for HIV patients. Training them and hospital-based providers is crucial, in part to avoid key errors, such as missed antiretroviral doses, she said: “We need to really think about how to get non-HIV providers up to speed.”
That may begin by simply making it clear that this population is here.
“A decade ago, HIV patients used to have a lower life expectancy, so all HIV studies used to use 50 years as the cutoff point for [the] older population,” Dr. Siddiqi said. “Now we know they’re living longer.”
Added Dr. Justice: “Previously, people thought aging and HIV were not coincident findings.”
The study was funded by the Office of the Vice President for Research at the University of South Carolina. The authors and Dr. Justice disclosed no relevant financial relationships.
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.