The Life Expectancy of Profoundly Handicapped People with Mental Retardation

• Published in: The New England journal of medicine Vol. 323; no. 9; pp. 584 - 589
• Main Authors: Eyman, Richard K, Grossman, Herbert J, Chaney, Robert H, Call, Thomas L
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Boston, MA Massachusetts Medical Society 30-08-1990
• Subjects: Activities of Daily Living; Adolescent; Adult; Biological and medical sciences; Brain damage; California; California - epidemiology; Capital punishment; Cerebral palsy; Child; Child, Preschool; Children with disabilities; Classification; Cognition; Cognitive ability; Developmental disabilities; Disabled Persons; Eating; Fecal Incontinence - complications; Feeding; Female; Handicapped; Humans; Infant; Infant, Newborn; Intellectual disabilities; Intellectual Disability - mortality; Intellectual Disability - physiopathology; Life Expectancy; Life span; Life Tables; Locomotion; Longevity; Male; Medical sciences; Mentally Retarded; Middle Aged; Morbidity; Mortality; Mortality Rates; Ostomy; People with disabilities; Physically Handicapped; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; School districts; Self Care; Supreme Court decisions; Urinary Incontinence - complications; California; Handicap; Human; Mortality; Immobilization; Psychopathology; Mental retardation; Life habit
• ISSN: 0028-4793; 1533-4406
• DOI: 10.1056/NEJM199008303230906

IT has been well established that the life expectancy of children and adults with severe mental retardation is reduced as compared with that of the general population.
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However, no studies have specifically addressed the life expectancy of profoundly handicapped people who are mentally retarded — i.e., those who are unable to care for any of their personal needs. The clinical practice of most physicians does not usually include treating mentally retarded persons, yet most handicapped children with mental retardation now survive the first years of life and live with their families in the community, where they will need medical treatment . . .