We have posted a number of times about the response of health services to the needs of people with learning disabbilites and recent reports have focused on the experience of people using general hospitals (see for example Mencap 74 Deaths and counting) One response to this concern has been the development of the Learning Disability [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…]
We have posted a number of times about staff burnout and the factors impacting on this, where previous studies have shown an assoication between stress, burnout and exposure to aggressive behaviours. The authors of this Canadian study were concerned that these previous attempts to study the issue were based on small samples and that there [read the full story…]
We have posted previously about solution focused therapy, where we looked at a small case series study with people with mild learning disabilities. Solution-focused therapy focuses on solutions, rather than on the presenting problems, based on the notion that even for people suffering chronic problems, there are periods when the difficulties do not occur or [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…]
There have been a number of studies testing attributions of support staff and their impact on helping behaviour when supporting people with learning disabilities anf challenging behaviour. We posted about one such study in January this year which looked at the impact of using vignettes to measure helping behaviour and used Weiner’s theory to explain [read the full story…]
In the late 1990s, a group of people concerned about the quality of palliative care being offered to people with learning disabilities started a voluntary organiation now known as the PCPLD Network. The work of the network has raised awareness of the issue and also supported the research agenda into this topic. This current qualitative [read the full story…]
We have posted previously about positive behaviour support (PBS) which includes a range of approaches based upon person centred values which use quality of life improvements for the person as an intervention and an outcome measure. This Irish study set out to look at the components of positive behavioural support interventions to try to identify [read the full story…]
