- Section 1 The Subject Matter of and Approach to Psychiatry
- 1.3 Psychiatry as a worldwide public health problem
- 1.4 The history of psychiatry as a medical specialty
- 1.5 Ethics and values
- 1.6 The psychiatrist as a manager
- 1.7 Descriptive phenomenology
- 1.8 Assessment
- 1.9 Diagnosis and classification
- 1.10 From science to practice
- Section 2 The Scientific Basis of Psychiatric Aetiology
- 2.3 The contribution of neurosciences
- 2.4 The contribution of genetics
- 2.5 The contribution of psychological science
- 2.6 The contribution of social sciences
- 2.7 The contribution of epidemiology to psychiatric aetiology
- Section 3 Psychodynamic Contributions to Psychiatry
- Section 4 Clinical Syndromes of Adult Psychiatry
- 4.4 Persistent delusional symptoms and disorders
- 4.5 Mood disorders
- 4.6 Stress-related and adjustment disorders
- 4.7 Anxiety disorders
- Section 5 Psychiatry and Medicine
- Section 6 Treatment Methods in Psychiatry
- 6.2 Somatic treatments
- Section 7 Social Psychiatry and Service Provision
- Section 8 The Psychiatry of Old Age
- Section 9 Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
- 9.1 General issues
- 9.2 Clinical syndromes
- 9.3 Situations affecting child mental health
- 9.4 The child as witness
- 9.5 Treatment methods for children and adolescents
- Section 10 Intellectual Disability (Mental Retardation)
- 10.1 Classification, diagnosis, psychiatric assessment, and needs assessment
- 10.2 Prevalence of intellectual disabilities and epidemiology of mental ill-health in adults with intellectual disabilities
- 10.3 Aetiology of intellectual disability: general issues and prevention
- 10.4 Syndromes causing intellectual disability
- 10.5 Psychiatric and behaviour disorders among mentally retarded people
- 10.6 Methods of treatment
- 10.7 Special needs of adolescents and elderly people with intellectual disability
- 10.8 Families with a member with intellectual disability and their needs
- 10.9 The planning and provision of psychiatric services for adults with intellectual disability
- Section 11 Forensic Psychiatry
Families with a member with intellectual disability and their needs
- Chapter:
- Families with a member with intellectual disability and their needs
- Author(s):
Ann Gath
and Jane McCarthy
- DOI:
- 10.1093/med/9780199696758.003.0250
Having a child with intellectual disability is a major and usually totally unexpected blow to any family. However, most families show great resourcefulness and adapt to give their normal child as well as themselves a happy, rewarding life. Parents strongly resent being treated as potential psychiatric patients and have vigorously thrown out the concept of ‘the handicapped family’. They do suffer understandable grief. From the point of discharge, the encouragement of informal support is more useful than providing hospital-based services. Children with all sorts of disability go to school early and the provision of unobtrusive familiar services is helpful. Unfortunately, there is often a gap in services between children's services and those for older adolescents and adults. The gap occurs at the worst time for parents who of all times require a familiar knowledgeable person who can offer a service throughout the transition period. The services required by the parents are practical help, such as appropriate equipment, respite care, advice about behaviour, and the ability to find emergency or specialized help at short notice. Parents also require some notice to be taken of their increasing age and/or infirmity, the financial difficulties arising out of the disability, and their anxiety that a humane plan can be made for their son or daughter when they die.
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- Section 1 The Subject Matter of and Approach to Psychiatry
- 1.3 Psychiatry as a worldwide public health problem
- 1.4 The history of psychiatry as a medical specialty
- 1.5 Ethics and values
- 1.6 The psychiatrist as a manager
- 1.7 Descriptive phenomenology
- 1.8 Assessment
- 1.9 Diagnosis and classification
- 1.10 From science to practice
- Section 2 The Scientific Basis of Psychiatric Aetiology
- 2.3 The contribution of neurosciences
- 2.4 The contribution of genetics
- 2.5 The contribution of psychological science
- 2.6 The contribution of social sciences
- 2.7 The contribution of epidemiology to psychiatric aetiology
- Section 3 Psychodynamic Contributions to Psychiatry
- Section 4 Clinical Syndromes of Adult Psychiatry
- 4.4 Persistent delusional symptoms and disorders
- 4.5 Mood disorders
- 4.6 Stress-related and adjustment disorders
- 4.7 Anxiety disorders
- Section 5 Psychiatry and Medicine
- Section 6 Treatment Methods in Psychiatry
- 6.2 Somatic treatments
- Section 7 Social Psychiatry and Service Provision
- Section 8 The Psychiatry of Old Age
- Section 9 Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
- 9.1 General issues
- 9.2 Clinical syndromes
- 9.3 Situations affecting child mental health
- 9.4 The child as witness
- 9.5 Treatment methods for children and adolescents
- Section 10 Intellectual Disability (Mental Retardation)
- 10.1 Classification, diagnosis, psychiatric assessment, and needs assessment
- 10.2 Prevalence of intellectual disabilities and epidemiology of mental ill-health in adults with intellectual disabilities
- 10.3 Aetiology of intellectual disability: general issues and prevention
- 10.4 Syndromes causing intellectual disability
- 10.5 Psychiatric and behaviour disorders among mentally retarded people
- 10.6 Methods of treatment
- 10.7 Special needs of adolescents and elderly people with intellectual disability
- 10.8 Families with a member with intellectual disability and their needs
- 10.9 The planning and provision of psychiatric services for adults with intellectual disability
- Section 11 Forensic Psychiatry