Blog posts by Philippa Hare

Having a senior moment"

Not quite all there"

Non compos mentis..."

These phrases will undoubtedly be offensive to people who have a diagnosis of dementia – but which of us hasn't used them unthinkingly and in a jokey kind of way? Perhaps this is because, for most of us, 'getting dementia' is our very worst fear. In our newspapers and on our televisions we see images of frail, elderly people, seemingly powerless and unengaged.

Derek's starting to feel his age…but, unlike many of us he doesn't have any family around to help him out. He never married or had children of his own, and - as a late and only child - he has no siblings either. Derek's never found it that easy to make others understand him, but now it seems to be getting even harder.

Thanks to developments in medicine, people living with HIV in the UK are now living longer into older age. But older people with HIV are substantially more disadvantaged than their peers – both financially and health-wise.

'50 Plus', a new report by the JRF, Terrence Higgins Trust and Age UK, shows that, like many people in this age group, people living with HIV face anxieties about long-term health care and financial security.