In light of current worldwide developments, the conference theme “Value Diversity” explicitly refers to the changes we need to see.This contribution is about Life expectancy of people with a severe or profound intellectual disability. Their life expectancy increases, which contributes to the risk of developing dementia. However, early detection and diagnosing dementia is complex, because of their low-level baseline functioning. Therefore, the aim is to identify observable dementia symptoms in adults with severe or profound intellectual disability in available literature.
BACKGROUND: Dementia is increasingly prevalent in people with severe/profound intellectual disabilities. However, early detection and diagnosis of dementia is complex in this population. This study aimed to identify observable dementia symptoms in adults with severe/profound intellectual disabilities in available literature.METHOD: A systematic literature search was conducted in PubMed, PsycINFO and Web of Science with an exhaustive search string using a combination of search terms for severe/profound intellectual disabilities and dementia/ageing.RESULTS: Eleven studies met inclusion criteria. Cognitive decline, behavioural and psychological alterations, decline in activities of daily living as well as neurological and physical changes were found.CONCLUSIONS: Only a very limited number of studies reported symptoms ascribed to dementia in adults with severe/profound intellectual disabilities. Given the complexity of signalling and diagnosing dementia, dedicated studies are required to unravel the natural history of dementia in this population.
There is a growing number of eHealth interventionsaiming at enhancing lifestyle to address obesity. However, theexisting interventions do not take the emotional aspects ofobesity into account. Forty percent of the overweight populationis an emotional eater. Emotional eaters gain weight because ofpoor emotion regulation, not just due to bad eating habits. Weaim at developing a personalised virtual coach ‘Denk je zèlf!’providing support for self-regulation of emotions for obeseemotional eaters. This paper presents a research study protocolon validating persuasive coaching strategies in emotionregulation, based on Dialectical Behaviour Therapy, ultimatelytargeting behaviour change. Our goal is to design a personalisedeCoaching framework, allowing us to optimally translatesuccessful behaviour change mechanisms and techniques, suchas dialectical strategies, into personalised persuasive coachingstrategies.
LINK