Fatigue Associated With Worse Cognitive Functioning in Older Persons with HIVOlder people with HIV e

Fatigue Associated With Worse Cognitive Functioning in Older Persons with HIV

Older people with HIV experience a type of fatigue associated with worse cognitive and everyday functioning, according to a paper published in the journal AIDS by UC San Diego School of Medicine researchers. That association remains even after accounting for factors like depression, anxiety and sleep quality.

The finding suggests fatigue is important symptom to assess and consider in the context of aging with HIV, which is a major focus in HIV research. By 2030, it’s estimated that 73 percent of persons with HIV will be age 50 or older. 

“There’s a dearth of research examining the fatigue-cognition relationship — in particular in people with HIV,” said senior author Raeanne Moore, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry at UC San Diego School of Medicine. 

“This is one of the first studies to examine it.”Moore and her team, led by graduate student researcher Laura Campbell, studied 105 people ages 50 to 74 — 69 persons with HIV and 36 persons without HIV — recruited from ongoing studies at UC San Diego’s HIV Neurobehavioral Research Center and from the community. Participants completed neuropsychological testing, a performance-based measure of everyday functioning and self-report questionnaires about fatigue, depression, anxiety, sleep quality, and everyday functioning. 

Fatigue was the only factor associated with cognition among participants with HIV. 

“The fact that we found this very strong relationship between fatigue and objective cognition among persons with HIV may speak to the biological underpinnings of fatigue and how that might be related to cognition, given that we also see this relationship in other chronic disease populations as well,” Moore said. 

“Down the road, the hope is that we can identify and modify some of some of these biological mechanisms with treatment.“Fatigue is often one of the primary complaints that patients present with, so identifying new ways to reduce fatigue could have a significant impact on daily cognitive abilities and overall quality of life.” 

— Corey Levitan 

Pictured above: A colorized scanning electron micrograph of an HIV-infected human T cell. Image courtesy of NIH.