The latest installment of Aging America, the joint AP-APME project looking at the aging of the baby boomers and its impact on society, is scheduled to move Wednesday for immediate use.
AGING AMERICA-AIDS CHATS
WASHINGTON — The seniors who live at the Edgewood apartment complex in northeast Washington have all the kinds of ailments common to older Americans. There's high cholesterol. Diabetes. Alzheimer's and dementia. Last month, though, the city's health department sent two women to the high-rise complex to speak about a different illness. It's a disease seniors sometimes dismiss as something only young people get: HIV and AIDS. The District of Columbia has one of the highest HIV infection rates in the country, and nearly 40 percent of the people living with the disease are over age 50. Officials say about one in five newly diagnosed cases in Washington is a person 50 or older. City officials are trying to raise older residents' awareness about the disease, which is spread through having unprotected sex or sharing needles and is treatable but has no cure, but talking to the baby boom generation about HIV and AIDS is different from talking to adolescents. Some seniors are less comfortable discussing sexually transmitted diseases, yet they're engaging in the same risky behavior that adolescents do that lead to HIV infection. By Jessica Gresko. With AP Photos.
The AP
