Life expectancy of people with intellectual disability: a 35-year follow-up study.
Adults with mild ID now live normal lifespans, but those with profound ID still lose decades—target seizures, infections, and poor housing to add years.
01Research in Context
What this study did
McSweeney et al. (2000) followed the same group of adults with intellectual disability for 35 years. They tracked who died and when, splitting the group by level of disability.
The team also noted extra health risks like epilepsy and hearing loss. They wanted to see how these risks changed survival.
What they found
Adults with mild ID lived about as long as people without ID. Adults with profound ID lost more than 20 % of expected life at every age.
Epilepsy or hearing problems raised the chance of early death in both groups.
How this fits with other research
Mendez et al. (2024) extends the story. Their newer French cohort shows a median survival of 53 years for adults with profound ID and multiple disabilities. The numbers fit the 2000 warning that profound ID still shortens life.
Hsieh et al. (2009) adds a twist. They found smaller, more social nursing homes cut 10-year mortality. So place matters as much as biology.
Reeve et al. (2016) zooms in on heart health. They show obesity, kidney disease, and antipsychotic drugs predict death in older adults with ID. These medical risks sit on top of the baseline risk mapped in McSweeney et al. (2000).
Fahmie et al. (2013) looks at the bright side. They tracked well-being in adults with mild or moderate ID and found it stayed stable over four years. This supports the 2000 finding that mild ID adults now age like everyone else.
Why it matters
You can plan longer lives for clients with mild ID—budget for retirement, leisure, and age-related health checks. For clients with profound ID, plan for a shorter horizon and watch treatable risks like lung infections, seizures, and hearing loss. Push for smaller, socially rich homes and heart-healthy habits. These moves can bend the survival curve toward the mild-ID pattern.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
A 35-year follow-up study based on a nation-wide population study of the life expectancy of people with intellectual disability (ID) was undertaken. The study population consisted of a total of 60,969 person-years. A prospective cohort study with mortality follow-up for 35 years was used and the life expectancy of people with ID was calculated for different levels of intelligence. Proportional hazard models were used to assess the influence of level of intelligence and associated disorders on survival. People with mild ID did not have poorer life expectancy than the general population and subjects with mild ID did not have lower life expectancy in the first 3 decades of life. In cases with profound ID, the proportion of expected life lost was > 20% for almost all age groups. The female preponderance was manifested from the age of 60 years onwards, 25 years later than in the general population. Respectively, survival between sexes differed less. Epilepsy and/or hearing impairment increased the relative risk of death for all levels of ID. The prevalence of people with ID over 40 years was 0.4%. People with ID now live longer than previously expected, and the ageing of people with mild ID appears to be equal to that of the general population, posing new challenges to health care professionals.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2000 · doi:10.1046/j.1365-2788.2000.00280.x