Recently in the Netherlands, Dutch TV showed footage of a teenager known as ‘Brandon’ who was resident in a long stay institution. Because of his challenging behaviour, he was managed in this institution by the use of a harness, which was attached via a leather strap to a metal bracket on the wall. Dutch psychiatrists have [read the full story…]
Earlier this week we have looked at the reports into the Winterbourne View scandal, which identified some appalling practice by staff at the home. Today, we are looking at some research that focuses on the potential for injury of staff who are involved in physical interventions. Physical interventions are defined as responses to challenging behaviour [read the full story…]
We have posted elsewhere on this blog about the issue of overweight and obesity in people with learning disabilities, with the evidence about the extent of this problem building with every new study. The researchers in the study however, were looking at a particular approach to dealing with the issue through a programme of peer-guided [read the full story…]
Physical interventions are still widely used in learning disability services, with BILD estimating their use in around half of all people with learning disabilities and challenging behaviour. The experience of people with learning disabilities of such interventions is not something that has been reported widely in the literature, but the researchers in this study set [read the full story…]
We have posted previously about the use of physical interventions in services supporting people with learning disabilities, drawing attention to the high levels of use in people described as having challenging behaviour. The researchers in this study in the Netherlands set out to look at the antecedent factors of restraint in people with learning disabilities [read the full story…]
Behaviour support plans to guide the way supporters respond and react to people with learning disabilities who are described as having behaviour that challenges are fundamental to the quality of support they receive. The authors of this Australian study were interested in looking at the quality of the plans and their effectiveness in providing support. [read the full story…]
The term ‘physical interventions’ refers to ‘any method of responding to challenging behaviour which involves some degree of direct physical force to limit or restrict movement or mobility’ The authors of this literature review set out to look at the current evidence on the use of restraint as an intervention in managing challenging behaviours in [read the full story…]
Community based studies have suggested that self injury in people with learning disabilities occurs in approximately 3% of adults living in community settings, show self-injury, often as a chronic condition for those with severe self injury. For some individuals, protective devices have been used, including padding, helmets, gloves and arm splints. In this case study, [read the full story…]
The authors of this study set out to look at whether trauma treatment had been successfully used with people with learning disabilities and substantially limited verbal capacities. They found no case studies in the literature. The article describes and assesses the applicability of eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR) a trauma therapy based on the [read the full story…]
This Australian study set out to look at the use of restraints and seclusion as responses to people with learning disabilities with behaviour described as challenging. The authors point out that the prevalence rate of such restrictive practices is difficult to agree as previous studies have not used population-level data. They used data on the [read the full story…]
