News ................................................... 6-11

BSRI recently recognized National HIV/AIDS and Aging Awareness Day. It’s a day to call attention to the growing number of people living long and full lives with HIV and to aging-related challenges of HIV prevention, testing, treatment, and care.

People with HIV are living longer thanks to treatment with HIV medicines. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in 2016, nearly half the people in the United States who were living with HIV were 50 or older. In 2017, one in six new diagnoses of HIV occurred in this age group.

People aging with HIV can face treatment-related challenges, such as drug interactions between HIV medicines and medicines used for other conditions. Older adults also face HIV prevention and testing challenges. Among older adults who received an HIV diagnosis in 2015, 50% had been living with HIV for four-and-a-half years before they were diagnosed. A delayed diagnosis means treatment with HIV medicines is also delayed, which gives HIV more time to damage the immune system.

Late diagnoses can occur because older adults may not think they are at risk of HIV, and they may mistake HIV symptoms for those of normal aging. Health care providers may not always test older people for HIV infection. To learn more, go to these National HIV/AIDS and Aging Awareness Day resources about HIV and aging: www.cdc.gov/hiv/library/awareness/nhaad.html aidsvu.org/national-hiv-aids-and-aging-awareness-day2020/

www.apa.org/pi/aids/resources/aging-awareness

1A woman told her friend, “I feel like my body has gotten totally out of shape, so I got my doctor’s permission to join a tness club and start exercising.” She said, “So, I decided to take an aerobics class for seniors. I bent, twisted, gyrated, jumped up and down, and perspired for an hour. But by the time I got my leotards on, the class was already over.” 2 Did you hear the watermelon joke? It’s pitiful.

3A businessman boarded an international ight and found a fancy young woman seated next to him wearing a large diamond ring. He asked her about the ring. “It is the Klopman diamond, but it comes with a terrible curse,” she said. “What’s the curse?” he asked. She replied, “Mr. Klopman.” 4 Three old guys are out walking. The rst one says, “Windy, isn’t it?” The second one says, “No, it’s Thursday!” The third one says, “So am I. Let’s go get a beer.”

5Why don’t they play poker in the jungle? Too many cheetahs.

6The good thing about having a bad memory is that jokes can be funny more than once.