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Jan. 31, 2005 People with learning disabilities are four times more likely to develop dementia. Some estimates indicate that 25% or more persons diagnosed with Down syndrome develop Alzheimer’s at a much earlier age than other populations. Folks with Down syndrome tend to begin showing symptoms of dementia somewhere around the ages of thirty-five to forty-five. Signs of dementia for the general population begin in the late sixties. Persons with learning disabilities have a tendency to age quicker than people in the general population. A twenty-five year-old person with mental retardation may display heart problems, arthritis, digestive problems, sleep apnea, and other illness common in older persons. Persons with Down syndrome have a tendency to develop serious muscular skeletal problems because they have an excessive amount of collagen. This leads to serious orthopedic problems, more specifically in joints. Having worked much of my life with persons with learning disabilities and special needs, I have observed many of these results. People with these types of disabilities also have a tendency to be depressed, anxious, and obsessive. Many are treated with psychotropic medications because no other treatments are known. The effects of psychotropic medications on these individuals receive mixed reviews. There are many excellent medications on the market today to treat mental illness. However, adapting these medications to the needs and problems of persons with mental retardation is slow in progress. Depending on what statistics you choose, approximately three to five percent of our population have some form of mental retardation. There has been minimal progress in preventing mental retardation. Because it is a chromosomal issue, mental retardation is difficult to stop. There are tests that can be given during pregnancy to determine if a fetus might have Down syndrome at birth. What to do with that information becomes a moral issue for parents and society. I have found personally that the best treatment for persons with mental retardation is no treatment. If you treat them as a peer they respond as a peer. If you treat them as a child, they will respond as a child. There remains a stigma in this country and a mindset that persons with disabilities aren’t really people. They are afflicted and should be hidden away and there are still countries in this world that in fact do hide their defects. Yes, they are often viewed as defects. Problem is, there’s no recall for people like there is for automobiles. It hasn’t been that many years ago when these individuals were given the negative names of idiots, morons, and imbeciles. I still hear people using the term “idiot savant” to indicate that a person is mentally retarded but have a special talent (Dustin Hoffman’s portrayal in the “Rain Man”)
If this article has done nothing for you,
let me suggest that you do some homework on
mental disabilities. And, the next time you’re
walking down a street in your hometown and you
happen upon someone with a disability, look
him/her straight in the eye and say “hello.” It
will do wonders for you and for them.
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