Screening for alcohol misuse in the emergency department needs to be done quickly and accurately, so it makes sense to find the best instrument for this purpose. This systematic review of diagnostic cohort studies searched a range of databases and journals and also conducted citation searching because of a lack of relevant literature found by [read the full story…]
The PANSS (Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale) is one of the most important rating instruments for patients with schizophrenia. Kay’s original 1987 article on PANSS has been cited more than 4,000 times making it one of the most frequently cited schizophrenia articles on PubMed. Despite its common use there still seems to be profound uncertainty [read the full story…]
Parental stress affects the psychological well-being of care givers and has been associated with increased risk of children with disabilities being taken into care. This study set out to characterise those providing care and support to children with learning disabilities when they are about to seek outside support and care. The researchers wanted to understand [read the full story…]
The authors of this study set out to investigate the influence of epilepsy on the development of psychiatric disorders in adults with learning disabilities. The researchers measured psychiatric symptoms a year among two groups – 45 adults with learning disabilities who had active epilepsy and 45 without epilepsy. Both groups were carefully matched on level [read the full story…]
The reporting of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms has been increasing in people with learning disability but researchers have also argued that such symptoms are being under diagnosed and also poorly treated. This review set out to identify the level of ADHD symptoms in children and adults with learning disabilities reported in published studies [read the full story…]
This study set out to look at associations between psychiatric disorders in people with learning disabilities and challenging behaviours. The study used a large sample and controlled for sex, age, autism and degree of learning disability. The researchers used data from 47% of all people with learning disabilities who were known to and receiving services [read the full story…]
Obesity is a major health concern in adults with learning disabilities. This study set out to evaluate the impact of a locally delivered NHS health promotion programme. 191 adults with learning disabilities took part in the evaluation and were screened and monitored over a 2-year period with attendance rates and body mass index (BMI) used [read the full story…]
The purpose of this systematic review was to explore the relationship between education and dementia. The authors from the University of Southern California searched PubMed and PsycInfo for published studies examining the relationship between education and dementia listed from January 1985 to July 2010. The inclusion criteria were a measure of education and a dementia [read the full story…]
Researchers in the south east of England set out to look at the experiences of violence at work in of staff in community learning disability teams. Following a brief survey sent to six such teams, the experiences were explored further in a series of in-depth interviews with a sub-sample of respondents. The survey suggested that [read the full story…]
Anti-psychotic medications comprise between 30–50% of all psychotropics prescribed for people with learning disabilities as reported in this WELD post: This study set out to explore metabolic syndrome (a group of risk factors that occur together and increase the risk for coronary artery disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes in people with learning disabilities who [read the full story…]
