Bridging the gap: national virtual education programme for professionals caring for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities at the time of COVID-19.

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted the mental health of adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). During this period of uncertainty and need for up-to-date information, various virtual training programmes demonstrated the role of tele-mentoring programmes. AIM: The aim of this paper is to describe the educational evaluation of the National Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes - Adults with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (ECHO-AIDD), a programme for service providers working with adults with IDD during COVID-19. METHOD: The programme consisted of six sessions, conducted weekly, over two cycles. Each session included didactic teaching by hub team members, COVID-19 news updates, wellness check-ins and a brief mindfulness activity, followed by a 30 to 45 min case-based discussion. The hub structure had an inter-professional approach to team expertise. Those with lived experience were an integral part of the content experts' hub. Pre-, post- and follow-up evaluation data were collected. RESULTS: Care providers from health and social care sectors (n = 230) participated in the programme. High levels of engagement and satisfaction were reported. Self-efficacy ratings improved from pre- to post-, and were maintained at 8-week follow-up; improvement from pre- to post- was significant (P < 0.0001). CONCLUSION: Exposure to National ECHO-AIDD educational intervention led to improvement in perceived competencies. This study also shows the valuable role of people with lived experience in fostering adaptive expertise in learners. The outreach and scalability support the feasibility of building a national virtual community of practice for IDD service providers. Future studies should focus on studying the impact of these programmes on the health outcomes of people with IDD.

Primary care of adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities: 2018 Canadian consensus guidelines.

OBJECTIVE: To update the 2011 Canadian guidelines for primary care of adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). METHODS: Family physicians and other health professionals experienced in the care of people with IDD reviewed and synthesized recent empirical, ecosystem, expert, and experiential knowledge. A system was developed to grade the strength of recommendations. RECOMMENDATIONS: Adults with IDD are a heterogeneous group of patients and have health conditions and factors affecting their health that can vary in kind, manifestation, severity, or complexity from those of others in the community. They require approaches to care and interventions that are adapted to their needs. These guidelines provide advice regarding standards of care. References to clinical tools and other practical resources are incorporated. The approaches to care that are outlined here can be applied to other groups of patients that have impairments in cognitive, communicative, or other adaptive functioning. CONCLUSION: As primary care providers, family physicians play a vital role in promoting the health and well-being of adults with IDD. These guidelines can aid their decision making with patients and caregivers.

Soins primaires aux adultes ayant des déficiences intellectuelles et développementales: Lignes directrices consensuelles canadiennes de 2018.

OBJECTIF: Mettre à jour les Lignes directrices consensuelles canadiennes 2011 en matière de soins primaires aux adultes ayant une déficience développementale. MÉTHODES: Des médecins de famille et d'autres professionnels de la santé expérimentés dans les soins aux personnes ayant des DID ont examiné et synthétisé les récentes connaissances empiriques, d'écosystèmes, expertes et expérientielles. Un système a été conçu pour catégoriser la qualité des recommandations. RECOMMANDATIONS: Les adultes ayant des DID sont un groupe hétérogène de patients qui présentent des affections médicales et des facteurs qui influent sur leur santé, qui diffèrent de ceux qui touchent les autres membres de la communauté de par leur nature, leurs manifestations, leur gravité ou leur complexité. Ces personnes nécessitent une approche de soins et des interventions adaptées à leurs besoins. Les présentes lignes directrices offrent des conseils en matière de normes de soins. Nous avons incorporé des références à des outils cliniques et à d'autres ressources pratiques. Les approches de soins décrites ici s'appliquent aussi à d'autres groupes de patients ayant un déficit cognitif ou de la communication, ou d'autres déficits des fonctions adaptatives. CONCLUSION: À titre de fournisseurs de soins de première ligne, les médecins de famille jouent un rôle vital de promotion de la santé et de bien-être auprès des adultes ayant des DID. Ces lignes directrices peuvent les aider à prendre des décisions avec les patients et les aidants naturels.

Managing complexity in care of patients with intellectual and developmental disabilities: Natural fit for the family physician as an expert generalist.

OBJECTIVE: To delineate the factors inherent in caring for patients with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) that lead to complexity and to provide perspectives and techniques mapped to the phases of the clinical encounter. SOURCES OF INFORMATION: The authors of the physical health section of the 2018 Canadian consensus guidelines on the primary care of adults with IDD consisted of family physicians, all of whom practise comprehensive family medicine with additional clinical experience in care of adults with IDD. These authors reviewed evidence on which their recommendations are based and these recommendations have undergone a rigorous peer review to ensure that they deserve special attention because they highlight what is different from what a family physician would consider to constitute "normal care" for the general population. MAIN MESSAGE: Additional factors across the phases of clinical encounters with patients with IDD include the need for the following: an initial assessment that identifies genetic or neurologic conditions to guide anticipatory care and isolates unique barriers to health promotion and chronic disease management; adaptations to history taking, particularly for patients who are unable to describe symptoms owing to cognitive and communication deficits; overcoming challenges to performing physical examinations and certain investigations; addressing uncertainty in the formulation of hypotheses to establish an appropriate diagnosis; and involvement of resources of the developmental services sector to provide a management plan as well as an adapted empathetic approach in order to integrate the patient's illness experience. CONCLUSION: Although each patient with IDD is unique, and care of patients with IDD requires knowledge of certain conditions, these considerations are readily identifiable, and family physicians as expert generalists are well equipped to provide excellent care to patients with IDD.

Improving transition to adulthood for adolescents with intellectual and developmental disabilities: Proactive developmental and systems perspective.

OBJECTIVE: To demonstrate how family physicians can contribute to a piece of the journey of improving quality-of-life outcomes for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) when they undergo the transition from adolescence to adulthood. SOURCES OF INFORMATION: The "Primary care of adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. 2018 Canadian consensus guidelines" literature review and interdisciplinary input. MAIN MESSAGE: Family physicians should be proactive in anticipating and supporting the transition of people with IDD from adolescence to adulthood. Interventions should be guided by a developmental perspective regarding the person with IDD and a life-cycle approach to supporting families. Family physicians also have a role in helping people with IDD and their families to navigate successfully through changing community-based support systems in their province, especially health care and social services systems. Therefore, family physicians should be aware of current services available in their regions. CONCLUSION: Community and team-based family physicians can optimize the quality of life of people with IDD and their families by adopting a proactive developmental and systems approach to preparing youth with IDD for adulthood. In doing so, they exemplify the 4 principles of family medicine.

Evidence for a link between the experiential allocation of saccade preparation and visuospatial attention.

Whether a link exists between the two orienting processes of saccade preparation and visuospatial attention has typically been studied by using either sensory cues or predetermined rules that instruct subjects where to allocate these limited resources. In the real world, explicit instructions are not always available and presumably expectations shaped by previous experience play an important role in the allocation of these processes. Here we examined whether manipulating two experiential factors that clearly influence saccade preparation--the probability and timing of saccadic responses--also influences the allocation of visuospatial attention. Occasionally, a visual probe was presented whose spatial location and time of presentation varied relative to those of the saccade target. The proportion of erroneous saccades directed toward this probe indexed saccade preparation, and the proportion of correct discriminations of probe orientation indexed visuospatial attention. Overall, preparation and attention were significantly correlated to each other across these manipulations of saccade probability and timing. Saccade probability influenced both preparation and attention processes, whereas saccade timing influenced only preparation processes. Unexpectedly, discrimination ability was not improved in those trials in which the probe triggered an erroneous saccade despite particularly heightened levels of saccade preparation. To account for our results, we propose a conceptual dual-purpose threshold model based on neurophysiological considerations that link the processes of saccade preparation and visuospatial attention. The threshold acts both as the minimum activity level required for eliciting saccades and a maximum level for which neural activity can provide attentional benefits.