Meeting the challenge of caring for an ageing population in Ireland

December 2010 Learning Disability Practice

As the number of people growing old with learning disabilities rises the need for a dedicated clinical nurse  specialist role is becoming imperative, argue Maria Caples and colleagues

The age profile of Irish people with a learning disability has changed significantly prompting a call for the development of the role of the gerontological clinical nurse specialist. The authors argue the role  would bring much-needed expertise to support families and carers and to advocate for individuals
accessing healthcare services.


Maria Caples, lecturer, Lynne Marsh, branch leader (BSc Learning disability), Caroline Dalton, lecturer, and Elaine Drummond, lecturer. All at the Catherine McAuley School of Nursing and Midwifery, University College Cork, Republic of Ireland.

N.B. Elaine Drummond contributed to this article. An obituary for Elaine was also published in the December print edition of LDP.. 

Carers & Parents Resource

Are you caring for someone with a learning disability?

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You'll find over 800 practical tips and ideas here from parents, carers, teachers, therapists ... people with everyday experience of learning disability.

Join our friendly, supportive community and get involved! Share your own handy hints and 'lightbulb moments' here. Download your video clips... or join our forum and swap ideas.

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The site, which offers hundreds of practical tips for supporting people with learning disabilities, has been inundated with contributions from parents on everything from brushing teeth to coping with challenging behaviour. Now the Netbuddy team wants to hear from professionals who can offer advice in areas such as nutrition, communication, health and hygiene, toilet training, feeding tubes, sensory therapy ... and more 

Positive Goals for Positive Behavioural Support

Interventions to improve the quality of life for people for people with learning disabilities whose behaviour challenges

Peter Fox and Eric Emerson

This resource is designed to aid the selection and evaluation of appropriate outcomes of intervention for people with learning disabilities whose behaviour challenges services. It focuses on a range of potential outcomes, enabling the people involved to select those which are relevant, then to evaluate progress towards achieving those outcomes. Crucially, it looks at the personal and social consequences of the person's challenging behaviour and the effect of interventions on these quality of life factors, rather than simply focusing on attempting to reduce the challenging behaviour itself.

Content includes:
* Introduction
* Positive goals and positive behavioral support (PBS)
* Development of positive goals
* How to use positive goals

Positive Goals is designed to act as an addition to existing assessment and intervention processes and documentation, and can be adapted to suit individual circumstances.

Vital information for: carers, clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, behaviour therapists, community learning disability nurses, social workers, care managers, members of community learning disability teams and members of challenging behaviour teams.

Format: ringbound resource with CD-rom containing video clips and photo stories (approx 80pp)