scholarly journals Working with elderly carers of people with learning disabilities and planning for the future

2000 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Hubert ◽  
Sheila Hollins

The majority of people with learning disabilities in the UK live at home with their families, usually with their parents (Mental Health Foundation, 1996) or – more commonly in later life – with one parent, usually their mother. Nowadays, people with learning disabilities live much longer than they did in the past, with the result that there is also an expanding population of elderly parents who are continuing to care for a son or daughter well into old age.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Nobels ◽  
Gilbert M.D. Lemmens ◽  
Lisa Thibau ◽  
Marie Beaulieu ◽  
Christophe Vandeviver ◽  
...  

Background Sexual violence (SV) has an important impact on mental health. Childhood sexual abuse is linked to internalising disorders in later life. In older adults, SV occurs more often than previously believed. Moreover, health care workers lack the skills to address SV in later life. Studies researching the mental health impact of lifetime SV, i.e. SV during childhood, adulthood and old age, are lacking. Methods Between July 2019 and March 2020, 513 older adults living in Belgium participated in structured face-to-face-interviews. Selection occurred via a cluster random probability sampling with a random walk finding approach. Depression, anxiety and posttraumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) were measured using validated scales. Participants were asked about suicide attempts and self-harm during their lifetime and in the past 12-months. SV was measured using behaviourally specific questions based on a broad SV definition. Results Rates for depression, anxiety and PTSD were 27%, 26% and 6% respectively, 2% had attempted suicide, 1% reported self-harm in the past 12-months. Over 44% experienced lifetime SV, 8% in the past 12-months. Lifetime SV was linked to depression (p =.001), anxiety (p =.001), and PTSD in participants with a chronic illness/disability (p = .002) or no/lower education (p <.001). We found no link between lifetime SV and suicide attempts or self-harm in the past 12-months. Conclusions Lifetime SV is linked to mental health problems in late life. Tailored mental health care for older SV victims is necessary. Therefore, capacity building of professionals, and development of clinical guidelines and care procedures are important.


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 651-655
Author(s):  
Rabia Aftab ◽  
Abrar Anam

People with a learning disability (LD) find it harder to learn certain life skills. The problems experienced vary from person to person, but may include learning new things, communication, managing money, reading, writing and personal care. Evidence indicates that people with LDs have poorer health than people without a LD, and have differences in health status that are, to an extent, avoidable. The health inequalities faced by people with LDs in the UK usually start early in life, and often result from barriers to access of timely, appropriate and effective healthcare. It is, therefore, essential at annual checks to opportunistically screen and holistically manage health inequalities. LD is a priority in the National Health Service’s Long Term Plan. Although a LD (depending upon severity) generally becomes apparent in early childhood, this article focuses on LDs in adults. LD and ‘intellectual disability’ are terms used interchangeably and recognised by the Mental Health Foundation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 161-169
Author(s):  
Razaan Alotaibi ◽  
Kowthar Ali

Introduction. The importance of memory is not restricted to remembering the knowledge and experiences of the past retrospective memory (RM), but also to remember what an individual must accomplish in the future prospective memory (PM). Objectives. The aim of this study was to identify RM and PM levels in students with learning disabilities (LD) according to some variables (gender, grade) and to identify the differences between the two types of memories. Methods. The study followed the comparative descriptive statistics. The study sample consisted of 37 male and female students with LD in middle school. The Prospective and Retrospective Memory Questionnaire (PRMQ) was used in this study. Results. The results include the following: a statistically significant decrease from the average in PM and RM levels in students with LD, the existence of statistically significant differences between PM and RM in students with LD for the RM, the presence of statistically significant differences in the PM and RM according to the gender variable for females, and the presence of statistically significant differences in PM and RM according to the grade variable for the third grade of middle school. Conclusion. Students with LD may suffer from a decrease in their capacity to remember in the future, which causes many difficulties in daily life. We guide teachers to use external AIDS for students with LD (such as writing notes) to help students remember performing their tasks.


2021 ◽  
pp. 303-316
Author(s):  
Abdullah Al Maruf ◽  
Chad Bousman

Matching individuals to tolerable and efficacious pharmacotherapies in mental health has proven challenging. As such, efforts to personalize psychotropic prescribing in mental health has received considerable attention over the past decade. This attention has been fueled by technological advances in genomics, specifically, pharmacogenomics, and, more recently, epigenomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics that have facilitated the identification of clinically useful biological markers to guide medication selection and dosing. The convergence of these omic technologies is arguably the future of personalized psychotropic prescribing. This chapter provides an overview of the current genomic, epigenomic, transcriptomic, proteomic, and metabolomic knowledgebase as it relates to psychotropic drug response in an effort to identify promising linkages between and facilitate convergence across these approaches to guide safe and effective pharmacotherapy relevant to psychiatry.


Author(s):  
Colin Palfrey

This chapter examines health promotion campaigns and policies designed to raise the profile of mental health, and more specifically to help those suffering from mental illness. It begins with an overview of mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, eating disorders, and personality disorders. It then considers the NHS policy on mental health; the mental health promotion strategies in the UK, including the Scottish Health Survey of 2016, the All Wales Mental Health Promotion Network, and the Mental Health Foundation report in Northern Ireland; the implications of the coexistence of physical and mental illness for policy makers and practitioners; and mental health charities such as Anxiety UK, Centre for Mental Health, Rethink Mental Illness, SANE and Time to Change. The chapter also discusses various mental health promotion strategies throughout the UK, locations for mental health promotion, and economic evaluations of mental health promotion.


2011 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 121-123
Author(s):  
Alex Bailey ◽  
James P. Warner

SummaryThe current method of delivery of psychiatric training and education in the UK is still almost solely based on the ‘firm’ or consultant-led system. Traditionally, these units have had fairly wide-ranging loci of clinical responsibility, ensuring a broad exposure to mental health conditions for both undergraduate students and psychiatric trainees. However, changes over the past decade, particularly in terms of functional splits within psychiatric services, have led to some limitation of this exposure. Various strategies have been employed by those responsible for educational provision within services, such as assigning trainees and students to in-patient and community ‘pairs' of teams. Although this has had some success, the introduction of more fundamental restructuring of mental health services and the advent of service lines will have even greater and more wide-ranging implications on education. This editorial examines some of these implications and looks at potential solutions to ensure that training is not forgotten in the wave of far-reaching and strategically driven reorganisations occurring within the National Health Service and more globally.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Philip Timms ◽  
Jenny Drife

SUMMARY Homelessness has long been associated with high rates of psychosis, alcohol and substance misuse, and personality disorder. However, psychiatric services in the UK have only recently engaged actively with homeless people. This article provides some background information about homelessness and mental illness and describes the elements of inclusion health and some of the models of service for homeless people that have been established over the past 30 years.


2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeannie Holstein ◽  
Ken Starkey ◽  
Mike Wright

In this article, we apply the idea of narrative to strategy and to the development of strategy in the higher education context. We explore how strategy is formed as an intertextual narrative in a comparative study of higher education in the UK. Existing research suggests that competition between narratives, such as that in higher education, should be problematic in strategy terms. We show that this is not necessarily the case. Unlike in other settings where new strategy narratives tend to drive out previous narratives, in higher education it is the on-going interaction between historical and new narratives that gives the content of strategy its essential voice. We show how apparently competing narratives are accommodated though appeals to emotion and values. The maintenance of strategic direction requires hope and a synthesis of societal values that maintains access to the past, the future, and multiple narrators. This approach helps us understand how universities perform the complex task of adapting the strengths of the university’s past to the challenges of external policy developments in strategy formation.


2004 ◽  
Vol 184 (4) ◽  
pp. 291-292 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick Bouras ◽  
Geraldine Holt

Services for people with learning disabilities have been transformed since the late 1960s by the move from institutional to community care. (Learning disabilities is the term currently used in the UK in preference to mental retardation, developmental disabilities and mental handicap.) Important changes include the progress towards integration, participation, inclusion and choice for people with learning disabilities, which have occurred in the context of the broader civil and human rights movements. It is time to examine the services delivered to people with learning disabilities and comorbid psychiatric disorders (mental illness, personality disorders, behavioural problems with aggression) and the evidence for their effectiveness.


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