ABSTRACT
The population of a large Canadian institution, providing rehabilitative and health care for the mentally retarded, received oculo-visual assessments in an optometric clinic established in the hospital by the University of Waterloo, School of Optometry. The ocular and visual anomalies of 1242 residents have been compiled and analyzed. This paper reports the results and discusses their implications. The size of the sample makes the data useful in planning vision care delivery to the mentally retarded. Comparisons are made to similar data obtained from a concurrent study of a community sample and to studies from vision literature.
Subject(s)
Eye Diseases/diagnosis , Intellectual Disability/complications , Refractive Errors/diagnosis , Adolescent , Adult , Aged , Child , Eye Diseases/complications , Female , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Strabismus/diagnosis , Vision Tests/methodsABSTRACT
Data on prevalence of antibody to hepatitis B surface antigen (anti-HBs) and of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) among 95 matched pairs of Down's syndrome (DS) and other mentally retarded (OMR) patients in an institution were analyzed by age on admission and by length of residence. Passive hemagglutination test were used to determine anti-HBs. Anti-HBs prevalence increased with admission age among DS patients (26%, 42% and 56% for age groups less than or equal to 5, 6-15 and greater than 15 years, respectively) but decreased among OMR patients (85%, 71% and 78%), giving overall rates of 38% for DS and 77% for OMR which are significantly different (p less than .001). Anti-HBs prevalence increased with length of residence for OMR patients but was unchanged for DS patients. For both groups, the prevalence of hepatitis B (HB) infection (both anti-HBs and HBsAg) increased with length of residence and, overall, was nearly the same for DS and OMR patients. These observations are consistent with the hypothesis that, with respect to response to HB virus, younger DS patients are immunologically immature.
Subject(s)
Hepatitis B/epidemiology , Intellectual Disability/complications , Residential Facilities , Adolescent , Age Factors , Antibodies, Viral/analysis , Child , Child, Preschool , Down Syndrome/complications , Down Syndrome/immunology , Hepatitis B/immunology , Hepatitis B Surface Antigens/analysis , Hepatitis B virus/immunology , Humans , Intellectual Disability/immunology , Length of Stay , OntarioABSTRACT
The prevalence of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) in 155 patients with Down's syndrome (DS) and 209 with other types of mental retardation (OMR) at Huronia Regional Centre, Orillia, Ontario was 34.8 and 5.3%, respectively. There was no significant difference in prevalence between males and females in either group of patients. In 75 matched pairs (DS-OMR) the HBsAg prevalence was 45% in DS and 8.3% in OMR males; in females 40% of those with DS were HBsAg-positive, whereas all the OMR residents were negative. The prevalence of HBsAg in both DS and OMR groups was higher in those admitted in early childhood and in those who had resided in the institution for more than 10 years. In all 54 HBsAg-positive DS patients the antigen subtype was ad. Among the 11 HBsAg-positive OMR patients the subtype was ad in 10 cases and ay in 1.
