Living with HIV as a Geriatric Male

Living with HIV as a Geriatric Male

Introduction

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome is a state of profound immune-deficiency that develops as a result of the immune system of the human being weakened over a passage of time. AIDS is caused by the immunodeficiency virus known as the HIV (Fan, Conner & Villarreal, 2011). The paper covers relevant information about the virus and history of the disease. Apart from that, the paper also presents the symptoms and causes of AIDS.

The diagnostic criteria for the disease are mentioned and the means of transmission of the disease are highlighted. The paper also discusses the possible treatment methods known up to date (Weeks, 2011). The purpose of this study is to expand the boundaries of our knowledge by exploring some relevant and factual information relating to analysis of Communicable Diseases: HIV. This paper is mainly focuses an old man living with HIV, the disease he got by having sex with a prostitute, further we have talk about the statistics of geriatric people who have got this disease.

Individual Example

Mr. N., a 62-year-old man with a history of HIV, came to the hospital with coughing, fever, weakness, and shortness of breath, he got this diseaese by having sex with a prostitute. Historically, when adherent to his medications, Mr. N.'s CD4 T-cell count is approximately 250 with a nondetectable viral load. Because he has been hospitalized three times during the past 2 years and has had periods of nonadherence and increasing HIV-related medical complications, Mr. N. has taken medical leave from his work.

On a usual day, he reports feeling fatigued with joint pain most of the time, often feeling like he cannot struggle through the day. He is embarrassed about loss of facial fat (lipodystrophy), which makes him appear gaunt and older than his stated age, so he avoids social situations and has become isolated. The "last insult" was being diagnosed with dyslipidemia, for which he was prescribed even more medication. He says getting old is hard but getting old with HIV is miserable.

Synergy of Aging and HIV/AIDS

In the pre-HAART era, geriatrics had affected more severelty and have a short time of survival and rapidly declining the counts of CD4+ as compared to to younger counterparts. They have also suffered from shorter acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS)-free intervals, and may have affected many opportunistic infections and earlier development of related malignancies. However, the survival rate of all HIV-infected patients has significantly improved in the HAART era, from the time of acquiring the HIV infection or death remains shorter in geriatrics.

Age realated changes in the immune system to pathogens plays important role in this finding. In addition, HIV and age have parallel effects on immune system, both have decling the B-cell and T-cell functions as a result decling of mimicing an accelerated immune system.

Clinical evidence of B-cell dysfunction supports that both ageing and HIV increased the risk of severe diseases. Older people with HIV are generally more comorbidities than ...