Supporting safe eating and drinking for people with severe and profound intellectual and multiple disabilities
Colin Griffiths Assistant professor, Trinity College, University of Dublin, Ireland
Sandra Fleming Assistant professor, Trinity College, University of Dublin, Ireland
Paul Horan Assistant professor, Trinity College, University of Dublin, Ireland
Paul Keenan Assistant professor, Trinity College, University of Dublin, Ireland
Karen Henderson Senior speech and language therapist, Cheeverstown House, Dublin, Ireland
Aine O’Reilly Clinical nurse manager, Stewarts Care, Dublin, Ireland
Carmel Doyle Assistant professor, Trinity College, University of Dublin, Ireland
This article outlines the difficulties that people with severe and profound intellectual and multiple disabilities may have when swallowing. The article explains the prevalence, causes and nature of swallowing difficulties for people with intellectual disabilities and discusses the assessment of swallowing, eating and drinking problems. It also examines management of swallowing problems in this cohort, and uses a case study to consider how to support someone with such difficulties in the context of Orem's self-care deficit theory. The article concludes with broad recommendations for care.
Learning Disability Practice.
doi: 10.7748/ldp.2018.e1817
Correspondence
cgriffi@tcd.ie
Peer review
This article has been subject to double-blind review and checked for plagiarism using automated software
Conflict of interestNone declared
Received: 24 November 2016
Accepted: 04 September 2017
Published online: 23 January 2018
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