With the substantial growth of an aging population, professionals in gerontology need to know how to work with groups of older people. Group work has become a popular means of helping the elderly, for example, to cope with losses (support groups) and to engage in social activities with peers (groups in day centers) as well as to support caregivers…

Consideration of the relationship between physical and mental health co-morbidities in ageing persons with Down syndrome (DS) and Alzheimer's dementia (AD) is of clinical importance both from a care and resource perspective. To investigate and measure health co-morbidities in ageing persons with Down syndrome with and without AD. Recorded physical…

Patients with corticobasal degeneration (CBD) appear to have impaired number knowledge. We examined the nature of their number deficit while we tested the hypothesis that comprehension of larger numbers depends in part on verbal mediation. We evaluated magnitude judgments and performance on number conservation measures rooted in Piagetian theory…

Gerontological research has emphasized family members' continued involvement in the lives of loved ones following institutionalization. However, many of these studies are cross-sectional in design and do not ascertain how family members' visits change over time. The present study utilized a growth curve analysis to examine preplacement and…

It has been clearly established that there is an increased incidence of early onset dementia of the Alzheimer type (DAT) in people who have Down syndrome. There are variations in the age of onset of the clinical signs of DAT, which may be accounted for by different risk factors. In this review we examined the evidence that different biological and…

Background: Whereas there is a knowledge base on staff attributions of challenging behaviour, there has been little research on the effects of training, type of behaviour and biological context on staff attributions of controllability in the context of people with intellectual disabilities and dementia. Methods: A mixed design was used to…

Two challenges facing nursing-home care today are understanding the concept of "quality of life" as it relates to cognitively impaired residents and finding effective ways to ensure that it is achieved. Canadian director Allan King's documentary, "Memory for Max, Claire, Ida and Company," filmed at Baycrest, captures a method…

This paper describes the development of the interRAI-Intellectual Disability (interRAI ID), a comprehensive instrument that assesses all key domains of interest to service providers relative to a person with an intellectual disability (ID). The authors report on the reliability and validity of embedded scales for cognition, self-care, aggression,…

Intellectual ability is assessed with the Spot-the-Word (STW) test (A. Baddeley, H. Emslie, & I. Nimmo Smith, 1993) by asking respondents to identify a word in a word-nonword item pair. Results in moderate-sized samples suggest this ability is resistant to decline due to dementia. The authors used a 3-parameter item response theory model to…

Background: Dementia is common among adults with Down's syndrome (DS); yet the diagnosis of dementia, particularly in its early stage, can be difficult in this population. One possible reason for this may be the different clinical manifestation of dementia among people with intellectual disabilities. Aims: The aim of this study was to map out the…

A widespread bias exists among legal, medical, and social service professionals that the appropriate placement for elderly individuals with cognitive impairment (dementia) is a nursing home. Two major reasons for institutionalization are to remove the patient from a potentially harmful situation and to relieve the family of the burden of care.…

A study of 18 Down Syndrome and 18 other mentally retarded adults found evidence of a significant erosion of Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children scores from the third to fourth decades of life. The Block Design subtest was especially vulnerable to performance decline with age in the Down Syndrome adults. (Author/JDD)

This Dutch study compares the behavior of staff (N=136) toward demented patients in residential homes with five expert recommendations for dealing with dementia. Results show that staff carried out the recommendations of encouraging activity, establishing effective communication, and not changing the patients' routine, but the staff tested and…

Examines the influence of caregivers' Attachment Styles and personality traits on their experiences of caring for dementia dependents. Results, based on 126 caregiver-dependent pairs, indicate connections between attachment style factors and caregiver experiences. Those choosing to institutionalize dependents ranked higher on Avoidance factors…

A study examined underlying factors for age-related decline in adaptive behavior in 128 adults with trisomy 21 over a three-year period. Presence of dementia was the only determining factor, although the difference in trend over time as compared to subjects without dementia was not significant. (Author/CR)