The Needs of Older People with Learning Disabilities and Mental Health Difficulties

A variety of significant factors such as changing attitudes and lifestyles, improvements in care and better access to medical treatments has led to increasing longevity of people with learning disabilities. In Britain, only lately the issue of care for older learning disabled people has started to attract the attention of researchers, professionals and policy makers. Thus, there are a number of unmet and upcoming needs especially of people who are experiencing mental health difficulties in addition. This paper reports on a study aimed at identifying current and projected needs of older people with learning disabilities and mental health difficulties. Semi-structured interviews with service users and their carers were conducted. Findings indicated that older people with learning disabilities had unmet physical and mental health needs and lacked appropriate activities, friends and other social contacts. Carers reported an absence of training and lack of understanding of the client group and confused responsibilities of relevant services, resulting in many older informal carers feeling isolated and unsupported.