Editorial

In Ireland today it is considered that approximately 6.7% of the population have learning disabilities.   ‘According to the National Intellectual Disability Database report 26,760 people are registered as being in receipt of, or in need of, a learning disability service (prevalence rate of 7.38/1000 total population). Many of these people have co-existing physical disabilities and psychiatric disorder, both of which increase in prevalence in proportion to the severity of the learning disability. Actual estimates of co-morbidity of learning disability and psychiatric illness have ranged across studies from 10% to 39% but all are significantly higher than the general population and the prevalence of behaviour disorders (which often reflect psychiatric disorder in this group) has been found to be even higher at 60.4%.

The World Health Organisation in its definition of learning disability points to the importance of holistic approaches to understanding individual needs; however there is still a tendency to attribute much emotional distress experienced by an individual to the disability rather then to particular emotional needs or psychiatric disorder.

Over the past 20 years changes have taken place in the development of care and services for people with learning disabilities. The philosophies of normalisation and inclusion have brought about a change in focus for these services, with more emphasis on individual characteristics and needs than disabilities, so that even people with severe problems are seen as having a right to be supported in community settings.