Early onset ageing and service preparation in people with intellectual disabilities: institutional managers' perspective.
Adults with ID age early, but services aren’t ready—screen sooner and plan longer supports.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Lin et al. (2011) asked 88 managers of Taiwan ID homes one big question. Are you ready for residents who age faster than everyone else?
The managers filled out a 20-item survey. They rated gaps in medical, money, and daily-living supports.
What they found
Every manager agreed: adults with ID show aging signs ten to twenty years early. Yet none said their service was ready.
Top worries were no geriatric doctors, no extra funds, and no staff trained for older bodies.
How this fits with other research
Prigge et al. (2013) later counted UK hospital days for mild-ID adults. Stays doubled in length as the group aged, backing the managers’ fear that services can’t keep up.
Pitchford et al. (2019) and Eggleston et al. (2018) give the medical picture. Adults with ID over 50 return to hospital more often and die sooner when they have many illnesses or pills. These numbers show what “unready” looks like in real life.
Anthony et al. (2020) found another crack. Adults who never got a functional assessment slip off rosters and lose day services. Together the papers say: people age early, fall through cracks, and stay sick longer.
Why it matters
If you serve adults with ID, expect their bodies to age faster than their peers. Start geriatric check-ups by 45, not 65. Push for functional assessments so clients stay visible in service lists. Plan longer discharge meetings after hospital stays. These steps turn the managers’ warning into action.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Although longevity among older adults with intellectual disabilities is increasing, there is limited information on their premature aging related health characteristics and how it may change with increasing age. The present paper provides information of the institutional manager's perception on early onset aging and service preparation for this population. We used purposive sampling to recruit 54 institutional managers who care for people with intellectual disabilities in Taiwan. The present study employed a cross-sectional design using a self-administrative structured questionnaire that was completed by the respondents in November 2009. The results showed that more than 90% of the respondents agreed with earlier onset aging characteristics of people with ID. However, nearly all of the respondents expressed that the government policies were inadequate and the institution is not capable of caring for aging people with ID, and more than half of them did not satisfy to their provisional care for this group of people. With regard to the service priority of government aging policy for people with ID, the respondent expressed that medical care, financial support, daily living care were the main areas in the future policy development for them. The factors of institutional type, expressed adequacy of government's service, respondent's job position, age, and working years in disability service were variables that can significantly predict the positive perceptions toward future governmental aging services for people with ID (adjusted R(2) = 0.563). We suggest that the future study strategy should underpin the aging characteristics of people with intellectual disabilities and its differences with general population to provide the useful information for the institutional caregivers.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2011 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2010.09.018