Session time: Thursday, March 21, 10:30 am – 12 pm ET
Location: Montreal ballroom (11th floor)
- Closing remarks by Howard Chertkow, CCNA Scientific Director
- Keynote talk by Lesley Fellows: “Cognitive health in chronic disease: Lessons from older people living with HIV”
- Description: Modern antiretroviral treatment has made HIV infection a chronic condition. As people grow older with well-controlled HIV, many are worried about worsening cognition. This is a new health challenge: these patients are those who have lived the longest with this infection, ever. Over a decade ago, we launched a multi-centre cohort to study the temporal evolution, contributors, and consequences of impaired brain health in more than 850 people over age 35 living with HIV in Canada. We considered cognition and mental health as inter-related constructs, situated within a comprehensive biopsychosocial framework, and also tested a range of non-pharmacological interventions. This keynote will present key lessons from the Positive Brain Health Now study: while cognition varies widely in this population, it is stable even over long periods of time in the majority. Some do show slow decline, however. Factors that contribute to poor brain health include the HIV infection itself, but also modifiable factors such as cardiovascular risk, and psychosocial considerations including stigmatization and economic marginalization. The study of brain health in those aging with HIV provides more general lessons on the complex interplay of biological and psychosocial factors in determining healthy or not-so-healthy aging.
- Keynote moderator: Mario Masellis