An exploratory investigation was conducted of the impact of interinstitutional relocation on 92 mentally retarded residents (ranging in age from 10 to 42 years). (Author/DB)

The ethical primacy of patient involvement in treatment decision-making requires that more attention be paid to assessment of a patient's competency to make treatment decisions. Makes recommendations to increase sensitivity to this issue with significantly impaired elderly nursing home patients and to improve existing decision-making procedures.…

Research on differences between families who do or do not seek residential placement for their severely mentally retarded children was summarized and organized within McCubbin and Patterson's (1983) Double ABCX Family Crisis Model, which considers family factors (demands, resources, and perspectives) in three phases (adjustment, restructuring, and…

Dyskinesia, abnormal involuntary movements associated with long-term neuroleptic drug use, was evaluated with 344 institutionalized profoundly mentally retarded adults using the Dyskinesia Identification System Condensed User Scale. Results indicated performance deficits on activation tasks associated with intelligence quotients, neuroleptic…

Experience with provision of optimal health services to mentally retarded individuals in institutional settings can be applied and adapted to design services for such adults living in the community. Coordination of health care by a team of nurses, primary care physicians, and special medical services is recommended. (Author/DB)

A survey of parents of mentally retarded children residing in publicly funded institutions found that they tended to endorse the current service model, although not without qualifications. Parents were generally not accepting of the idea of community placement, especially those parents who had never visited a group home. (Author/VW)

Evaluation of a combined "hands-on" and videotape training package used to teach direct care staff in an Intermediate Care Facility to conduct daily activities for profoundly mentally retarded persons indicated staff performance improved after the training and was maintained at three-week follow-up. (Author/DB)

Investigated four kinds of community-based housing and case-managed home care programs for associations with subsequent institutional utilization. Analyses of institutional placement rates and days indicated that significant effects of housing and case-managed home care services were limited to elderly in the high institutional-risk group.…

Treatment of mentally retarded persons with psychotropic and anticonvulsant drugs is discussed in terms of drug classification, rationale for use, attitudes toward use, and clinical research findings. The literature on neuroleptic, anticonvulsant, anxiolytic, and cerebral stimulant drugs is summarized. Controversial reports that some medications…

Describes the experientially determined problems of long-term mentally disabled women. Reviews of 320 hospital records of patients in hospitals throughout Michigan showed significant sex differences for client age, marital status, living arrangement, diagnosis, functioning level, voluntary/involuntary status, admission information, medications,…

Interview data on families with children multiply admitted to residential care were contrasted with data from a disadvantaged comparison sample. Members of the in-care group were twice as likely as those in the comparison group to have parenting problems and were distinguished as much by other kinds of family difficulties as by parenting problems…

A nationwide study of costs of U.S. institutional care between fiscal years 1977 and 1984 identified major trends: a plateau in adjusted total nationwide spending for institutional operations, a decline in adjusted nationwide spending for institutions from state revenue sources, and emergence of the federal government as an equal partner in…

The study confirmed previous research indicating that workshop training by itself is an ineffective method of increasing direct care staff compliance to treatment prescriptions, and that providing direct staff supervisors with a training and management tool (prescriptive checklists) may be an effective alternative for serving multihandicapped…

The paper reviews research on behavioral staff management strategies in institutions for developmentally disabled persons, considering procedural effectiveness of four approaches: antecedent, contingency management, self-control, and multifaceted interventions. Methodological problems in the research are noted, along with needs for research on…