The lives of some people with profound and multiple learning disabilities are affected by challenging behaviours, which include self-injurious, stereotypical, destructive, or aggressive behaviours.
Here in his debut blog, Paul Barnard looks at a study from the Netherlands which looked at whether challenging behaviour was being addressed formally in day to day practice.
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Around half of all people with a learning disability have epilepsy and there are significant concerns about the impact of non-compliance with prescribed medications, which is linked with increased morbidity.
In her debut blog, Jill Hughes reflects on a study which set out to see if there was a link between the living arrangements of people with learning disabilities and compliance with anti-epileptic medication regimes.
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Being engaged in our community at a level, with which we feel comfortable, could be a measure of the quality of our lives. But how do workers who support people with learning disabilities help them in ways, which can achieve this? What helps and what gets in the way?
Here, in her debut blog, Paula Hopes looks at a naturalistic observation study that looked at this issue in more detail.
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Some people with learning disabilities may find it difficult to learn social rules and behaviours, which can impact on involvement and engagement in their commnunities.
In her debut blog, Mandy Johnson looks at a project in the Republic of Ireland which set out to help people consider the desirability of a range of social behaviours and the complexities of social context.
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André Tomlin presents the results of the PREVENT RCT published today in The Lancet, which investigates the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy compared with maintenance antidepressant treatment in the prevention of depressive relapse or recurrence.
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Children with learning disabilities are more likely to have challenging behaviours and as a result are more at risk of social exclusion, deprivation, physical harm and abuse.
In her debut blog, Alix Dixon considers the findings of a recent literature review of early interventions for children with challenging behaviours and their families.
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Individual Service Funds offer the opportunity for flexible, person centred responses by providers. But in order to achieve this flexibility, commissioners need to break down larger block contracts to make funds available.
Here, Nick Burton looks at an evaluation of such a disaggregation of funds that took place in the London Borough of Southwark.
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Self injurious behaviour in people with learning disabilities, as well as causing physical harm, can have a major impact on quality of life. It is not entirely clear why people engage in self injurious behaviours, but one theory suggests that it may be connected with an opiate euphoria. If this is so, it might be that medications that blocked these opiates might impact on levels of SIB.
Here, Rachel Allen looks at a systematic review that set out to address that question.
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Hannah Morgan examines a secondary analysis of the UK Life Opportunities Survey which explores disabled people’s experiences of violent and hate crime.
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Mindfulness has been offered as a way to help reduce stress in family and carers but few studies have as yet looked directly at the effects of offering mindfulness-based interventions to people with learning disabilities themselves.
In her debut blog, Leen Vereenhooghe looks at an attempt to evaluate a mindfulness group in an inpatient assessment and treatment unit through the experiences of those who took part.
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