Background: During COVID-19 measures face-to-face contact is limited and professional carers have to find other ways to support people with intellectual disabilities. COVID-19 measures can increase stress in people with intellectual disabilities, although some people may adapt to or grow from these uncertain situations. Resilience is the process of effectively negotiating, adapting to, or managing significant sources of stress and trauma. The current study aims to provide professional carers with new insights into how they can support people with intellectual disabilities. Method: An online survey was shared through the social media and organizational newsletters of MEE ZHN (a non-governmental organization for people with disabilities). The resilience framework by Ungar (2019) was adapted to fit to people with intellectual disabilities during COVID-19 measures. Statistical analyses were performed in SPSS statistics version 26. Results: Results show that professional carers applied diverse and distal methods to maintain contact with people with intellectual disabilities during the COVID-19 measures. Professional carers reported a significant decrease in the quality of contact with clients with intellectual disabilities, but overall high levels of resilience in the same clients. Implications: Online methods of communication are possibly insufficient for professionals to cover all needs of people with intellectual disabilities. During this pandemic professionals should be aware of stress but also of resilience in people with intellectual disabilities.
BackgroundPeople with intellectual disabilities (ID) have a lower life expectancy than their peers without ID. A contributing factor to the lower life expectancy and early mortality could be sarcopenia: low muscle mass and low muscle function. In the general population, sarcopenia strongly predicts early mortality, but this association is unknown in people with ID. Therefore, this study aims to explore the association between sarcopenia and 5-year mortality in older adults with ID.MethodsIn the Healthy Ageing and Intellectual Disabilities (HA-ID) study, the prevalence of sarcopenia was measured at baseline among 884 older adults (≥50 years) with ID. All-cause mortality was measured over a 5-year follow-up period. Univariable and multivariable Cox proportional hazard models were applied to determine the association between sarcopenia (no sarcopenia, pre-sarcopenia, sarcopenia, severe sarcopenia) and early mortality, adjusted for age, sex, level of ID, presence of Down syndrome, and co-morbidity (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes type 2 and metabolic syndrome).ResultsThe unadjusted hazard ratio (HR) for sarcopenia was 2.28 [95% confidence interval (CI) 1.48–3.42], P < 0.001), and 2.40 (95% CI 1.40–4.10, P = 0.001) for severe sarcopenia. When adjusted for age, sex, level of ID, and Down syndrome, sarcopenia (HR = 1.72, 95% CI 1.08–2.75, P = 0.022) and severe sarcopenia (HR = 1.86, 95% CI 1.07–3.23, P = 0.028) were significantly associated with early mortality. When additionally adjusted for co-morbidity, the adjusted HR decreased to 1.62 (95% CI 1.02–2.59, P = 0.043) and 1.81 (95% CI 1.04–3.15, P = 0.035) for sarcopenia and severe sarcopenia, respectively.ConclusionSarcopenia is an independent risk factor for early mortality in older adults with ID over a 5-year follow-up period. Our results stress the need to delay the incidence and development of sarcopenia in older adults with ID.
Background: Persons with an intellectual disability are at a higher risk of experiencing adversities. The concept of resilience offers promising insights into facilitating personal growth after adversity. The current study aims at providing an overview of the current research on resilience and the way this can contribute to quality of life in people with intellectual disability. Method: A literature review was conducted in the databases PsycINFO and Web of Science. To evaluate the quality of the studies, the Mixed Method Appraisal Tool (MMAT) was used. Results: The themes, autonomy, self-acceptance and physical health, were identified as internal sources of resilience. External sources of resilience can be found within the social network and daily activities. Conclusion: The current overview shows promising results to address resilience in adults with intellectual disability. More research is needed to identify the full range of resiliency factors.
