Short breaks offer a way for people with disabilities and their family carers to take a break from each other. For the person supported, they offer an opportunity to be away from home and for family carers an opportunity to recharge depleted batteries. In 2003, Mencap surveyed seventy six families from across England and Northern [read the full story…]
Introduction People living with chronic disease often have a poor quality of life, and, for the NHS, it results in a significant cost and resource burden, with people facing years of treatment. It makes sense therefore to make sure that health services are run as efficiently as possible, while maintaining or improving levels of quality. [read the full story…]
Williams syndrome is a neuro-developmental genetic disorder caused by gene deletion estimated to have a prevalence of 1 in 7,500 to 1 in 20,000 live births. Previous studies have identified anxiety as part of the behavioural phenotype of the syndrome The authors of this US study set out to look at the effectiveness and adverse [read the full story…]
Last September I blogged about a cohort study in the Lancet that highlighted the links between self-harm and poor physical health. This same dataset (drawn from over 30,000 patients from 6 hospitals in Oxford, Manchester and Derby from 2000-7) has now spawned a longitudinal study published in the European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry journal. This [read the full story…]
There are more and more examples of mainstream mental health services supporting people with learning disabilities when they have mental health problems. The authors of this cross sectional study were keen to explore whether the attitudes of staff in mainstream mental health services towards people with learning disabilities was in any way negative and whether [read the full story…]
Studies have suggested that anti-psychotic medications comprise between 30–50% of all psychotropics prescribed for people with learning disabilities, often prescribed for people with challenging behaviours with no diagnosis of mental illness. Reviews of their use have suggested however that there is no strong evidence supporting the anti-aggressive properties of anti-psychotics. This study in Australia was [read the full story…]
We have posted before about the factors which may impact on staff burnout in services supporting people with learning disabilities. Some of the studies we identified have suggested that personal and organisational supports increasing a sense of personal achievement for staff can provide a buffer against emotional exhaustion and that interventions related to improving mindfulness might [read the full story…]
The research and campaigns relating to life outcomes for people with schizophrenia and psychosis are truly shocking. It seems unbelievable that people with schizophrenia face a lifespan 15-20 years shorter than the general population and that only 7% are able to hold down a job. Paul Jenkins from Rethink Mental Illness sums it up nicely: [read the full story…]
Getting feedback about interventions from people with learning disabilities involves a number of challenges, including of course communication difficulties The researchers in this study were interested in how occupational therapists (OT’s) gathered feedback from people who used their services. They looked at this by asking 70 OT’s to complete a questionnaire and a subset of [read the full story…]
In the wake of the outcome of last week’s court proceedings involving support staff who worked at Winterbourne View hospital, there have been continuing calls to ensure that people with learning disabilities and complex needs are not placed far from home in isolated services, but receive local, skilled support. The Mansell report drew attention to [read the full story…]
