Helping people with learning disabilities cope with the difficulties they face in everyday life
THERE HAS been a huge increase in awareness about the importance of looking after your mental health. TV and billboard advertising campaigns encourage us to take care when it comes to dealing with stressful situations. Stress management courses, exercise, yoga and meditation classes all provide learning opportunities to help us cope with stress and manage our psychological wellbeing.
But what about people with learning disabilities? How can they mind their mental health or how can the people in their lives help them find ways to reduce stress and cope with difficulties that arise in their everyday lives?
Geraldine Moore is a nurse and complementary therapist who works in the Order of Malta day centre for people with disabilities in Drogheda, Co Louth. She began offering foot and hand massage at the centre for people who range in age from their late teens to their 60s.
“The staff who see them every day tell me that they see physical improvements in terms of increased mobility or mental or emotional improvements. It’s also very good for anger management,” says Moore. “I couldn’t do full body massage because it would be too intrusive, but most of the people who come tolerate taking off their socks and shoes and rolling up their trousers or rolling up their sleeves, so I can give them a hand massage,” she says.
“The physical improvements also include improvement in sleep, loosening up of limbs and reduction of headaches. Also, it’s time out of the group situation and a chance for some one-to- one attention.”
Prof Mary McCarron, dean of faculty of health sciences at Trinity College Dublin and lead researcher on the recent study, Growing Older with an Intellectual Disability,says that people with intellectual disabilities have much higher levels of mental health problems than the general population.
“Our study found that 47 per cent of those with an intellectual disability over 40 had a diagnosis of a mental health or emotional health problem and 18.9 per cent had a diagnosis of depression,” she says.
“We found that many of these people had few family and friendship ties, which are the informal supports that protect our mental health.”
Cheeverstown House in Templeogue, Dublin, is one place where people with intellectual disabilities have had services realigned to help them cope with mental health issues.
“Our aim is to integrate with the general mental health service as a service with specialist expertise in intellectual disability, so that we can take referrals from GPs of people with intellectual disabilities in the community who have mental health needs,” says Dr Brendan McCormack, clinical director of Cheeverstown House.
Involving patients in their treatment plan, supporting families and providing education about mental illness is all part of the goal of this initiative.
Tracey Jones, music therapist at Cheeverstown House, works as part of the mental health and intellectual disabilities team there. “People with intellectual disabilities have to cope with a lot of loss in their lives – everything from the loss of the life they wish for, to siblings moving out of home to parents dying,” says Jones. “Music therapy allows them to express what they are going through with someone else. We find the classes help people to stay calm and focus and can prevent deterioration of symptoms in some cases.”
