A POPULATION-BASED HEALTH SURVEY OF MALADAPTIVE BEHAVIORS ASSOCIATED WITH DEMENTIA IN ELDERLY PEOPLE WITH LEARNING-DISABILITIES

Maladaptive behaviours are known to present as a feature of dementia a mongst people from the general population, but there has been little r esearch to examine whether this has implications for people with learn ing disabilities who develop dementia. Out of 143 people with learning disabilities aged 65 years and over living in Leicestershire, England , 134 (93.7%) participated in the study. Twenty-nine people diagnosed as having dementia were compared against 99 people without dementia; s ix people with possible dementia were excluded from the analysis. Comp arisons were made on the results of a checklist of maladaptive behavio urs. Seventeen out of the 22 maladaptive behaviours examined were foun d to be more prevalent amongst the people with dementia. The behaviour s which were significantly more prevalent in the group with dementia i ncluded lack of energy, lack of sense of danger, sleep disturbance, ag itation, incontinence, excessively uncooperative, mealtime/feeding pro blem, irritability and aggression. Dementia is becoming more prevalent amongst people with learning disabilities because of their increasing life span. Maladaptive behaviours are commonly associated with dement ia. This can cause a significant burden for individuals and their care rs, which may influence the viability of a person's residential placem ent.