Attitudes of Family Members Towards Mentally Handicapped Children and Family Burden.

Background — The burden associated with rearing such mentally handicapped children usually affects whole of atmosphere of home including routine family life, emotional aspects and financial resources of family. The present study has been undertaken with the aim of determining the attitudes of family members towards a mentally handicapped child in their family and it has been assessed whether such children are considered as burden to their families. Material and Methods — The study was carried out in psychiatry OPD of the civil hospital, Gurdaspur in Punjab. Parents of children suffering from mental handicap who came for getting mental disability certificate for their children were included in the study. Total 200 families of mentally handicapped children were included in age group of upto 16 years of age. They were interviewed using a questionnaire based on ‘ Questionnaire on Resources and stress ‘scale to measure burden in their families. During the interview, an attempt was made to have both the parents present. Results — Basic psychometric properties of the questionnaire were sound. Findings revealed that mean burden was minimal to moderate in all the 200 families. The intelligence quotient was between 36 and 51 in 120 children, 70 children had IQ between 20 and 35, 10 children had IQ below 20. The education of parents was upto 5th standard in 100 children, upto 8th standard in 80 children, upto12th standard in 15 children and upto graduation in 5 children. 80% of families belonged to poor socioeconomic status. 10% of families belonged to middle class background. Conclusion — Our findings support the fact that children suffering from mental handicap are considered as burden by their family members. Negative parental attitude leads to rejecting attitude towards mentally retarded children. This adversely affects the interaction within the family and also with outsiders. Such children should be offered support by family members to enable them to cope with stressful situations and in their rehabilitation. There is a need for implementation of family based schemes for such disabled children.

Genetic studies in children with intellectual disability and autistic spectrum of disorders.

Autism is one of the five disorders that falls under the umbrella of Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD) or Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), a category of neurological disorders characterized by “severe and pervasive impairment in several areas of development.” ASD is characterized by varying degrees of impairment in communication skills, social interaction and restricted, repetitive stereotyped patterns of behavior. The five disorders under PDD are autistic disorder, Asperger's disorder, childhood disintegrative disorder, Rett's disorder and PDD-not otherwise specified. ASD can often be reliably detected by the age of 3 years and, in some cases, as early as 18 months. The appearance of any warning signs of ASD is reason to have the child evaluated by a professional specializing in these disorders.

A follow-up study of effect of the two kinds of skills training for rehabilitating schizophrenics in the community / 中国康复理论与实践

@#ObjectiveTo explore the efficacy of medication management and symptom management skills-training for preventing schizophrenics' relapse and rehabilitating their mental handicaps.Methods133 subjects were randomly assigned to the skills training group and the control group. Both groups received the same treatment, but the skills training courses were given to the skills training group for the first twenty weeks. One-year follow-up was carried out. All subjects were evaluated with standard rating scales and self-complied drug treatment compliance rating scale. Results128 subjects had completed the research. The skills training group demonstrated clinical results significantly superior to those of the control group on overall improvement according to the total score of the drug treatment compliance rating scale, the rate of relapse, the rate of re-hospitalization and the rate of effectiveness of minimizing handicap(147.9±53.2 vs. 90.4±16.3, 146.1±20.0 vs. 91.7±16.7;12.5% vs. 55%; 3.2% vs. 39.6%;86.5% vs. 26.5%, P<0.01).Conclusions The two kinds of skills training are effective in both preventing the relapse of schizophrenics in the community and minimizing their handicap.