The aim of this study was to determine the effects of sugar-free chewing gum on the oral health and quality of life of dentate older people living in the community and attending for routine dental care. What did they do Participants aged 60 years and over with a minimum of 6 natural teeth living independently [read the full story…]
Payment by Results (PbR) was introduced into the NHS with the aim of improving efficiency and increasing value for money. The approach uses a national tariff of agreed fixed prices reflecting average prices for procedures. In this article, the authors argue that given that outcome focused approaches to payment by results will be incrementally introduced [read the full story…]
Traditionally the response of periodontal disease to treatment has most commonly been measured using the surrogate markers of; bleeding on probing (BOP); pocket probing depth (PPD) and clinical attachment loss (CAL). This review aims to review whether a patient orientation measure (POEM) such as quality of life can measure the effect of treatment. What did [read the full story…]
Getting information from people with learning disabilities about their health is often done through discussions with professionals and carers. The authors of this study wanted to know more about the health problems people with learning disabilities themselves reported and whether there were differences from what their carers’ reported. They explored this by carrying out a [read the full story…]
A key indicator of service outcomes for people with learning disabilities is quality of life. However, there continues to be debate in the literature about the best way to define this and the best way to measure it. Most of the major service providers in the UK for example have some form of routine outcome [read the full story…]
As long ago as 1994 Emerson and Hatton produced a review of UK literature on the outcomes for people with learning disabilities leaving long stay institutions (Emerson E & Hatton C (1994); Moving Out: Relocation from Hospital to Community) which involved 2,350 service users. The findings of this review of international studies nearly twenty years [read the full story…]
There is now a good body of literature concerned with the quality of life of people with learning disabilities and a number of practical approaches available to consider its measurement (for example personal outcome measures and the Quality Network) The research has identified five domains of quality of life: material well-being, development and activity, physical [read the full story…]
The need for appropriately supported accommodation for people with learning disabilities continues to rise as people naturally move from family homes to their own. Controlling costs of support has always been a major concern for the paying authorities, but this is particularly true in the current climate of financial constraint. They key challenge is how [read the full story…]
Whilst there has been an increasing interest in developing measures of quality of life for people with learning disabilities, there has been little research looking specifically at the experiences of women with learning disabilities aged 40 years or older. This study set out to look at this specific group and to do this, worked with [read the full story…]
This review of the literature sets out to look at developments in concepts and measures of family quality of life. The authors identify a developing trend from interventions for people with learning disabilities based solely on the individual’s special needs independent of the family and environmental context through to a position where these needs are [read the full story…]
