Implications of introducing baseline assessments to the dementia pathway for individuals with Down’s Syndrome in the Buckinghamshire Community Learning Disability Health Team (CLDHT)

Abstract

Dementias, such as Alzheimer’s disease, affect around 88% of people with Down’s Syndrome (DS) by the age of 65. In the general population, dementia is identified by comparing individual’s scores on neuropsychological assessments against age- and education- matched controls. This is not possible for people with DS due to complex reasons. The introduction of baseline cognitive testing of individuals with DS at the age of 30, to later use to identify cognitive decline and dementia, has been recommended. This project explores the possible impact of introducing baseline assessments in a Community Learning Disability service and provides recommendations.■Dementia can cause people to forget things and lose skills.■Dementia affects lots of people with Down’s Syndrome as they get older.■It can help people with Dementia if we find out about it earlier. We can do this by having information about someone’s abilities when they are younger to compare with later. This is called having a baseline assessment.■We looked at how many people with Down’s Syndrome and Dementia were known to our service. We also talked to health professionals.■We found that health professionals want to offer baseline assessments to people with Down’s Syndrome. However, there might be some challenges, like having enough staff to do the assessments.■We made some recommendations.The Learning Disability Team should offer baseline assessments for people with Down’s Syndrome.hese should only be done if the person and /or their carers want it.We need to know more about what people with Down’s Syndrome think about this.