The Department of Health have published an updated guide summarising the health harms of drug and alcohol misuse, which is aimed at supporting non-medical practitioners working with substance misuse issues. The document updates the 2003 “Dangerousness of Drugs” guide. It’s an 80-page PDF report and it outlines acute and chronic problems associated with each substance, [read the full story…]
Some of the risk factors for suicide are well known. Research shows that mental illness is the most significant risk factor and we also know that gender plays a big part (men are at greater risk). However, some of the other potential risk factors are less well study, such as the impact that serious physical [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…]
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…]
Childhood sexual abuse is a strong predictor of schizophrenia in later life, a leading psychiatrist has told the International Congress of the Royal College of Psychiatrists 2011. It is a contributing cause of 17 per cent of cases of psychotic illness including schizophrenia, Professor Paul Bebbington, Head of the Department of Mental Health Sciences at [read the full story…]
The healthcare needs of people with learning disabilities are well documented, we know they visit primary care professionals less often than would be expected and receive fewer screening tests and fewer health investigations. This U.S. study looked at the health status of ‘working-age adults with cognitive limitations’ and compared this with adults with no disability [read the full story…]
