Senior care homes behind the 'alarming' STI epidemic

A study has revealed "alarming concerns" over seniors in care homes having unprotected sex and contributing to an STI epidemic.

Among America's elderly, people over the age of 65 years old have broken historic records for the amount of STIs being spread. Since 2010, cases of chlamydia have more than tripled and syphilis cases have surged nearly ten-fold. Gonorrhoea cases have also increased nearly five-fold, according to the Daily Mail.

Alaska and California were ranked the highest for common STIs among the age group, with South Dakota and Washington not far behind.

Health experts suggested that the spread of STIs for 65 and overs is down to the lack of knowledge about them.

They also highlighted that elderly people no longer feel the need to use protection with fears of accidental pregnancy taken out of the equation. A 2018 study by the AARP found that just eight per cent of sexually active seniors reported using protection.

"Back in the ’30s, the ’40s, the ’50s, traditional school wasn’t really doing sexual education very formally," Matthew Lee Smith, an associate professor at the Texas A&M School of Public Health, told NBC News.

He also mentioned that healthcare providers may feel uncomfortable raising these types of conversations.

"No one wants to think about grandma doing this," Smith continued. "You certainly aren’t going to ask grandma if she was wearing condoms — and that’s part of the problem, because every individual regardless of age has the right to intimacy."

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