* About 10% of all new AIDS cases in the US occur in people over 50
* Some of these cases result in a younger generation with AIDS growing older but some are due to new infections in adults over 50
* Also, very few people over 50 get tested for HIV which adds to the rate of infection in this age group
* Usually older adults are diagnosed when they are in the late stages of the disease because many HIV symptoms coincide with diseases associated with aging and are passed off as age related
* For example, AIDS-related dementia is misdiagnosed as Alzheimer’s, and symptoms like fatigue and weight loss are also a normal occurrence in aging
* Older people are not thought by society to be an at-risk population
* Therefore, older adults have less knowledge about AIDS than younger people
* Homosexual men comprise the largest group in people over 50 with AIDS
* Older homosexual men are ignored by the gay community and in prevention
* Among women, the older a women gets the higher the risk because of biological factors such as decrease in vaginal lubrication and thinning vaginal walls
* HIV infection among older people is increasing because they are less likely to use condoms and get tested than younger people are
* Also, doctors do not take into consideration HIV as a possibility for their older patients
* 40% of the time, doctors were likely to rarely or never ask patients over 50 about HIV risk factors compared with 6.8% with patients under 30
* One reason older adults do not use condoms is because there is no risk for pregnancy in post-menopausal women
* A prevention group called Senior HIV Intervention Project trains older peer educators to present educational and safer sex seminars at retirement communities
* To further prevent the spread of HIV in adults over 50, ad campaigns need to begin showing and talking about people over 50 with regards to HIV and encouraging them to be tested for the disease
* Also, clinicians need to have thorough examinations that include sex and drug assessments with patients over 50