Autonomy is defined as the freedom to determine one’s own actions or behaviour. It is a value at the heart of health and social care support and those supporting people with learning disabilities are constantly striving to maintain and indeed increase the autonomy of those they provide help to. The authors of this Netherlands based [read the full story…]
Josephine Neale summarises a recent review of qualitative evidence that finds carers’ views are mixed and lie on a spectrum of acceptance of their relative as actively dying with dementia.
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In February this year, we posted about new summary information sheets produced by the challenging behaviour foundation. This month sees the launch of a new series of three information sheets which look at the causes of challenging behaviour, and explain how to make effective plans to reduce it. The information sheets are designed to provide [read the full story…]
Short breaks offer an opportunity for the person supported to be away from home and for family carers the opportunity to recharge depleted batteries. Earlier this year, we reported on the publication of Mencap’s survey of families which suggested that 8 out of 10 families surveyed reported they had reached breaking point, reporting high levels [read the full story…]
In recent years, a number of studies have begun to explore bereavement and grief in people with learning disabilities. Hollins and Esterhuyzen (1997) for example in the late 1990s reported the results of a matched control group study into the reaction of people with learning disabilities to bereavement, which found highly significant differences significant differences [read the full story…]
People with Down syndrome are more likely to develop dementia than those without and indeed this is more likely to occur at an earlier age, where clinical symptoms can occur when people are in their late 40s or early 50s. There is also some evidence that there are some differences in clinical symptoms in people [read the full story…]
Studies have shown that women with learning disabilities are less likely than those without disabilities to have access to cervical and breast cancer screening services as set out in the relevant clinical guidelines. The team at Improving Health and Lives, the learning disabilities public health observatory (LDPHO) reported that reasonable adjustments were not being made [read the full story…]
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…]
A few years ago, the older family carers initiative, run by the Foundation for People with Learning Disabilities published a series of reports and some excellent guidelines on providing support to help inform not only practitioners, but commissioners and of course older family carers themselves of their rights and the kind of support they could might [read the full story…]
Shared decision making with family carers is clearly espoused in policy in the UK and elsewhere. The researchers in this U.S. study were interested to look at to what extent parents of children with autism spectrum disorder reported being engaged in such shared decision making. They set out to look at the association between shared [read the full story…]
