Only a qualified health professional can diagnose AIDS. To evaluate a patient with a positive HIV test, the health-care practitioner performs a complete physical examination and collects the patient's social and family history. Diagnostic laboratory tests are also performed. These tests typically include complete blood count and routine chemistry; CD4+ T cell count; assays (analyses) that measure the amount of HIV-1 RNA in plasma; tuberculin skin tests to detect the presence of the bacterium that causes tuberculosis; and assays for the microbial agents that cause syphilis, toxoplasmosis, and hepatitis B and C. Female patients are screened for cervical cancer using the Papanicolaou smear.

HIV infection progresses through a range of stages. Following the establishment of the infection (primary infection), there follows a typically prolonged asymptomatic (symptom-free) period before the appearance of symptoms and the deterioration of the patient's health. Among the symptoms that develop are weight loss; malaise (a feeling of general discomfort or uneasiness); nausea; fever; night sweats; swollen lymph glands; a heavy, persistent, dry cough; easy bruising or unexplained bleeding; watery diarrhea; loss of memory; balance problems; mood changes; blurring or loss of vision; and oral lesions, such as thrush (a fungal infection caused by Candida albicans, which appears as a white coating on the tongue and throat). The infecting virus is basically the same in all infected people in terms of its structure and genetic makeup, but individual reactions to the virus vary greatly. Death is usually the result of the OIs and cancers that arise due to the impaired immune system--not HIV.

Before the 1987 case definition many researchers were reluctant to include dementia as a symptom indicative of AIDS. In ''New Study Is Easing Fears on AIDS and Mental Illness'' (New York Times, June 3, 1989), Lawrence K. Altman notes that some observers cited early studies that showed as many as 40% to 70% of people infected with the virus developed neurological and psychological complications several years before other clinical symptoms, such as weight loss and fever, appeared. This fear led the military and civilian authorities to bar infected people from certain jobs involving public safety, including commercial pilots and bus drivers.

Altman reports that officials at the World Health Organization (WHO) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) jointly found these estimates to be false. They reported that even though neurological complications are common in the later stages of AIDS, dementia is rarely diagnosed in asymptomatic HIV-infected people, affecting fewer than 1% of those infected with HIV who have not yet developed AIDS.

A number of research studies were initiated in the 1990s to determine conclusively if there was any link between dementia and the subsequent diagnosis of AIDS. The data from studies conducted by the U.S. Air Force, a joint effort by the CDC and the San Francisco Health Department, and the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study of men who have sex with other men in Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Pittsburgh (sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the National Cancer Institute) confirmed that the 40% to 70% frequency rate of dementia for HIV-infected people was far higher than the actual rate. One explanation for the higher figures reported into the 1980s is that the data came from centers to which AIDS patients with dementia had been referred for treatment. Put another way, the sample population was skewed toward the increased prevalence of dementia.

HIV-associated dementia (also called AIDS dementia complex) is now recognized as a declining cognitive (thinking) function that generally occurs in the late stages of HIV infection. The dementia is caused directly by the destruction of brain cells by the infecting HIV and is different from the forgetfulness and difficulty in concentrating that can be the by-products of depression and fatigue.

Free term papers are not written to satisfy your specific instructions. You can use our professional writing services to buy a custom written research paper, term paper, or essay on HIV/AIDS at affordable price. CustomTermPapers is the best solution for those who seek help in writing term papers, essays, and research papers related to HIV/AIDS and other relevant topics.