Publication Abstract Display
Type: Published Abstract
Title: Additive effects of HIV infection and aging on "Remembering to Remember".
Authors: Woods SP, Weber E, Grant I, and the HNRC Group
Year: 2010
Publication: 1st International Conference on HIV and Aging
Volume: Issue: Pages:
Abstract:HIV infection and aging are each independently associated with impairment in prospective memory (ProM), which describes one's ability to "remember to remember" and is known to increase the risk of poor functional outcomes, including medication non-adherence. The incidence and prevalence of HIV infection among older adults has increased in recent years, thereby raising questions about the combined effects of these risk factors on ProM. To address this issue, we conducted a series of related experiments in 118 participants who were classified into four groups on the basis of HIV serostatus and age (i.e., < 40 years and > 50 years). Experiment 1 showed significant additive effects of HIV and aging on both time- and event-based ProM, with the greatest deficits evident in the older HIV+ group, even after controlling for other demographic factors and potential medical and psychiatric confounds. Worse ProM performance was associated with executive dysfunction, older age, and histories of immunocompromise in the older HIV+ cohort. Experiments 2 and 3 revealed that the ProM deficits in the older HIV+ participants might be ameliorated by increasing the semantic relatedness of the cues and intentions or by allowing the use of mnemonic compensatory strategies, which presumably minimize demands on cognitive control. Taken together, these data suggest that older HIV-infected adults are particularly vulnerable to ProM impairment, perhaps secondary to greater neuropathological burden in the prefrontostriatal systems critical to optimal ProM functioning, but also point to possible targets for neurorehabilitative efforts to improve ProM and daily functioning outcomes in this growing subpopulation.

return to publications listing