The Effects Of HIV On The Nervous System

Today's short post from nurseuncut.com.au (see link below) sums up the concerns of many people living with HIV that they will end up with neurological problems as a result. Certainly during the first years of the plague, many patients moved rapidly towards severe neurological problems but with the improvements in medication, that is now far less often the case. The article refers to neuropathy as a 'mild neurological abnormality'; something that many neuropathy patients may take issue with but when compared to dementia, Alzheimers etc maybe you could argue that neuropathy is the lesser of many neurological evils. Following the link in the last paragraph will provide a lot more information on the subject.

Positive living with HIV
Posted on December 12, 2012 by NU_admin

Guest post by Adrian Ogier, the editor of Positive Living, published by theNational Association of People with HIV Australia (NAPWHA).

Here, Adrian introduces the current issue of Positive Living.

A lot of people with HIV worry about losing our minds—particularly those of us who’ve had HIV for a while and are, how shall I put it, getting on in years…

We remember the toll paid before decent HIV treatments came along. Early in the epidemic about one in seven people with AIDS developed dementia, a diagnosis that usually progressed to severe disability and death within a year.

But there’s no need for panic. HIV-associated dementia is now so rare that the incidence is down to almost zero.

What we are seeing these days, however, is quite a bit of low-level neurocognitive impairment. Some of it is so low level, in fact, that while it can be picked up by a range of neuropsychological tests, the person with HIV and their significant others don’t even know anything is going on.

Up to 50 percent of people with HIV who are on treatment may be living with central nervous system abnormalities. Most of these are mild and include things like peripheral neuropathy, myopathy (limb muscle weakness, myalgia and muscle cramps) and changes in brain structure and functioning.

HIV gets into the central nervous system (CNS) quite early on – often within a week of infection. Over time it can cause an immune response, inflammation and the production of chemicals (cytokines and chemokines). All this may result in damage to a range of cells, particularly in the brain.

For some people on treatment, HIV still seems able to affect those parts of the brain related to cognitive ability, including memory, learning, attention and how fast we process things. The problem is that these losses are similar to those everyone experiences in older age. This intersection between ageing and HIV in the brain, together with a range of other factors, can make it difficult to untangle the relative contribution of each.

In the December issue of Positive Living, Neil McKellar-Stewart looks at HIV in the central nervous system and explains why taking treatment and a range of other health measures is so important for keeping our brains healthy. We also list some of the commonly-used HIV treatments in Australia and rate them according to their ability to penetrate the blood-brain barrier.

http://www.nurseuncut.com.au/positive-living-with-hiv/