Levett T et al. Evaluation of a Combined HIV and Geriatrics Clinic for Older People Living with HIV: The Silver Clinic in Brighton, UK. Geriatrics 5: 81, 2020 (open access).
As people living with HIV are living into old age, clinicians are developing new models of care. Dr Tom Levett and colleagues in Brighton, England, have recently described a combined HIV and geriatrics clinic – the Silver Clinic – that was designed to meet the needs of such patients by combining HIV care with geriatric care.
In the UK currently 39,000 people (39% of the total) accessing HIV services are aged 50 or older. By 2030, 73% of people with HIV in the Netherlands will be aged over 50. As people with HIV grow older they appear to be experiencing more age-related illnesses than HIV-negative people of similar age. People with more illnesses need to take more medications (this is known as polypharmacy) and as they age they often face functional and cognitive decline, frailty and falls. These can be grouped together as ‘geriatric syndromes’.
The Silver Clinic in Brighton, England, was set up to address the complex needs of people who are ageing with HIV. The clinic team consists of a geriatrics physician working alongside an HIV physician, HIV nurse specialist and HIV pharmacist. Read more via AIDSmap