Submitted by admin on Tue, 2006-12-05 08:00. ::
orothy Stone Montgomery remembers a time when seniors were wise and proud, serving as community elders who dispensed advice to children, teens and young adults.
Today, Montgomery, 78, of Detroit sees too many of her peers in crisis. Often widowed, many seniors are having unprotected sex and ultimately contracting HIV -- just like their younger counterparts. A long-time community activist, Montgomery wanted to help seniors by telling them age does not deter HIV.
"I could not believe it when I found out that seniors are dying from sex," Montgomery says. "We have lost our grounding. I want to see seniors become proud again and lead better lives. They can't do that if they have HIV."
Many seniors don't worry about using protection because they associate condom use with birth control. No longer concerned about pregnancy, many seniors don't understand they need to protect themselves, says Nancy Allen, founder and director of Urban Solutions.
Montgomery and 12 other seniors -- or peer counselors -- have learned how to hold conversations with other seniors on what could be considered embarrassing topics: how to use male and female condoms; when it's appropriate to use a dental dam for oral sex; the various ways HIV is transmitted.
Armed with information, the counselors travel around Metro Detroit talking to hundreds of seniors at churches, community centers and homeless shelters as part of the Senior Solutions Project geared to stem the tide of people older than 50 who are contracting HIV in alarming numbers.
The numbers of HIV-infected seniors remains a growing concern. Between 11 and 15 percent of AIDS cases in the United States occurs in people older than 50. Between 1991 and 1996, AIDS cases in that age group rose more than twice as fast as young adults, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
While men who have sex with men are the largest group of AIDS cases in the 50 and older population, the numbers of heterosexual women 50 and older are increasing. HIV in seniors is more difficult to detect because symptoms such as fatigue, weight loss, dementia, skin rashes and swollen lymph nodes are associated with aging.
At a session last week at Detroit Area Agency on Aging, the seniors took a brief quiz on their knowledge of HIV/AIDS. While watching the Urban Solutions-produced movie, "Seniors At Risk," the seniors learned about some scenarios that lead to seniors contracting HIV. For example, one scene depicts a man in his 60s having monthly relations with a much younger woman who tended to come around the first of the month when he got a check. Other scenes show an older man having sex with a younger man and then dating a woman, and two men sharing a needle while using heroin.
The group also learned that HIV can be passed even when two diabetics share needles. Afterward, they took a second quiz and ate sandwiches, chips and cookies.
After warming up to the topic, the seniors had lots of questions. They wanted to know if people get HIV from kissing. One gentleman said he wanted to know because at social functions people seem to want to kiss him. He also was wondering was there any way to get rid of "it" once you get "it."
Montgomery did her best to make it plain: "When you have it, it never goes away. We think because we are finished having children and we have gone through menopause, we are home free. But we are never home free."
Initially, Rhoda Stephens, 67, joked about the information. She blurted out that she didn't have worries because she hadn't had sex since the 1980s. Many of them chimed in to tell her she wasn't alone.
The seniors grabbed for the yellow condom lollipops decorated with smiley faces because they were cute, and found the dental dams comical, wondering aloud why people bothered using them.
But by the end of the session, though, Stephens saw how she could play a role by spreading the word to her peers in her neighborhood on Detroit's east side.
She particularly wanted to share how HIV can be spread through breast milk, something she didn't know, and how seniors can become infected if they don't use condoms.
Gene Pisha, the Michigan coordinator for congressional affairs with the American Association for Retired People, sat in on the meeting and left wanting to organize a statewide effort to spread the word to the 1.7 million Michigan members.
"I knew a little bit about HIV/AIDS and the methods of transmission," he says. "It's not transmitted by hugging or kissing, but by the exchange in fluids. I think I knew that, but it's good to hear it again. There are many seniors out there who ought to know this and see this film."
"Seniors are key to getting this information out," she says, "because sometimes they have two or three generations listening to them. If we get seniors to support this, we can get the message out."
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