Karen Dodd

Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust · Department of Psychology

Background Individuals with Down syndrome (DS) are at significant risk for early onset Alzheimer’s disease (AD), likely due to the triplication of genes on chromosome 21that facilitate AD neuropathology. To aid the effective early diagnosis of dementia in DS, we demonstrate the strategy of using single point assessment of cognitive performance with...

Introduction Having a diagnosis of Down syndrome (DS) is associated with intellectual disability (ID), pervasive developmental disorders and Alzheimer’s dementia (AD). The association between these conditions has not been well evaluated. This paper looks to examine the current evidence pertaining to the relationship between dementia in people with...

Purpose Assessment of executive functioning is an important element of a comprehensive assessment of intellectual abilities. Few assessments available are accessible for individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID) and none have population-specific norms. This paper aims to describe the adaptation of the behavioural assessment of dysexecutive sy...

This chapter examines the prevalence, diagnosis, and management of dementia in older people with intellectual disabilities, including Down syndrome. The chapter begins with a discussion of the current demographics of older individuals with intellectual disabilities, including increasing life expectancy and physical health issues, before considering...

Author's reply to: Difficulties of diagnosing and managing dementia in people with Down syndrome - Volume 213 Issue 5 - Nicole Eady, Rory Sheehan, Khadija Rantell, Amanda Sinai, Jane Bernal, Ingrid Bohnen, Simon Bonell, Ken Courtenay, Karen Dodd, Dina Gazizova, Angela Hassiotis, Richard Hillier, Judith McBrien, Kamalika Mukherji, Asim Naeem, Natali...

Background There is little evidence to guide pharmacological treatment in adults with Down syndrome and Alzheimer's disease. Aims To investigate the effect of cholinesterase inhibitors or memantine on survival and function in adults with Down syndrome and Alzheimer's disease. Method This was a naturalistic longitudinal follow-up of a clinical coh...

Background: People with Down syndrome (DS) are an ultra-high risk population for Alzheimer's disease (AD). Understanding the factors associated with age of onset and survival in this population could highlight factors associated with modulation of the amyloid cascade. Objective: This study aimed to establish the typical age at diagnosis and surv...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the importance of equal access to Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) for people with intellectual disabilities. Design/methodology/approach The paper identifies barriers to access and shows how a reference group can work to solve the barriers and increase access. Findings The paper e...

Objectives: Post diagnostic support (PDS) has varied definitions within mainstream dementia services and different health and social care organizations, encompassing a range of supports that are offered to adults once diagnosed with dementia until death. Method: An international summit on intellectual disability and dementia held in Glasgow, Sco...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to consider the implications for people with Down’s Syndrome and families of identifying those people who are risk of developing dementia from the research study ‘Estimating the number of people with Down’s Syndrome in Scotland and the cohort at elevated risk of early onset dementia.’ Design/methodology/approa...

Purpose – Outcome measurement is a key priority for services. There are no papers on specific overall quality outcome measures for people with intellectual disabilities who have dementia. The purpose of this paper is to describe the development and piloting of a new measure. Design/methodology/approach – A process was developed to measure qualit...

Dementia is common in people with Down's syndrome as they age. Having dementia raises huge care considerations for carers and staff. Excellence in care requires attention to a wide variety of interrelated issues. Carers and staff need to have a good understanding of what it means to have dementia to deliver person-centered care. In addition, they n...

We looked at how staff think about the changes from working in a long-stay hospital setting to working in a home for people with learning disabilities. In homes, staff said that they were more relaxed and could spend more time and offer more choices to residents than they could when they worked in hospital settings. With the changes, staff often ha...

Purpose – There is little research addressing the delivery of training for health professionals who are interested in using cognitive-behaviour therapy (CBT) techniques as an adjunct to their current role. This paper describes the establishment and evaluation of a CBT training course to develop CBT skills in staff working with people with intellect...

It is well established that people with Down's syndrome are more likely to develop dementia than other people and that onset of dementia is likely to occur earlier at an earlier age. The article reports on a specialist service for people with Down's syndrome and dementia. The service has offered dementia screening and assessment to people with Down...

Accessible summaryPeople with learning disabilities might have their children taken from their care. If they do, what then happens to the parents?I talked to nine mums who had their children taken away from their care. They told me about what this was like and how they felt.This research gives advice to people (particularly professional people) abo...

The aim of the study was to explore the validity of the social-moral awareness test (SMAT) a measure designed for assessing socio-moral rule knowledge and reasoning in people with learning disabilities. Comparisons between Theory of Mind and socio-moral reasoning allowed the exploration of construct validity of the tool. Factor structure, reliabili...

The Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme was established to treat people with mild to moderate depression and anxiety and bring them to recovery. Although the Positive Practice Guide for people with intellectual disabilities was published in 2009, no geographical areas are listed as having a special interest in specifically...

Following Beacroft & Dodd’s (2009) audit of pain recognition and management within learning disability services in Surrey, it was recommended that learning disability services should receive training in pain recognition and management. Two hundred and seventy-five services were invited to participate, of which 197 services in Surrey accepted and at...

• This study is about the life stories of six older people with Down’s syndrome who spent some part of their childhoods in institutionalised settings.• They have interesting and moving stories to tell about their lives. They talked about their childhood and current lives, their likes and dislikes, their strengths and difficulties and their hopes an...

Accessible summary• Pain is not recognised and managed well for people with learning disabilities in residential settings – People with learning disabilities are not getting timely and appropriate ‘as required’ medication for their pain.• Staff do not use pain recognition tools or communication aids.• Some staff still believe that people with learn...

An audit was conducted across Surrey to investigate pain recognition and management with people with learning disabilities. This section of the audit looked at what people with learning disabilities understood and experienced when they had pain compared to good practice from the literature. The results show that people with learning disabilities st...

The focus of interest in dementia in people with learning disabilities has been largely on epidemiology, prevalence, assessment and diagnosis. There has been less focus on care issues and interventions, with a paucity of research papers but a growing number of books and resource packs addressing these issues. Psychological and non-pharmacological a...

This article looks at how people with learning disabilities, including people with learning disabilities who develop dementia, make the transition to old age. It identifies key issues in understanding the transition to old age for people with learning disabilities, including how the ageing process may be different for this group, lack of agreement...

A research study carried out in Surrey to look at staff knowledge of and attitudes towards adult protection highlighted issues that may underpin the reasons for low levels of reported abuse with particular service user groups. This article looks at how the Surrey Adult Protection Committee has dealt with the recommendations of the research.

Despite the introduction of Surrey-wide vulnerable adults policies and procedures, monitoring figures from the Surrey Adult Protection Committee indicate that abuse is still being under-reported for different service user groups. This study explored staff knowledge and attitudes towards abuse and the reporting procedure to further understand why ab...

There is a current emphasis from Department of Health publications on the need for people to take responsibility for monitoring and improving their own health. This includes people with a learning disability (PLD). This paper presents the findings of a pilot study which investigated whether people with learning disabilities can understand and commu...

Children with spina bifida who attend ordinary schools are usually found to be less severely handicapped than their PH school counterparts. This study looked at thirty-eight pairs of children born since the introduction of selective surgery and matched for chronological age, one attending an ordinary school and the other PH schools. There was no di...

Self-Concept and attainment were examined in spina bifida children born before and after the introduction of selective surgery. It was expected that children born since the introduction of selection would be better adjusted and have a higher level of attainment. The results confirm that there are substantial differences between the two groups, with...

Nearly 1000 patients with spina bifida were assigned to social groups using the Registrar General's classifications of their father's employment. The ages of the patients ranged from 0 to 29 years, with a mean of 14.8 years. The social class distribution revealed a small but significant excess of skilled and semi-skilled manual workers (Groups III...