The profile of cognitive performance shows selective and progressive dysfunction of attention and executive function in patients with mild to moderate HD, consistent with frontostriatal pathology at this stage of disease.

Long-stay psychiatric in-patients in South Glamorgan were reviewed using the MRC Needs for Care assessment. The majority were middle aged or elderly and were severely disabled, with problems encompassing symptoms/behavioural difficulties, social skills, and physical health. In most, long-standing psychiatric illness was compounded by physical illness and cognitive deficits as age advanced, producing care needs that were greater than existing community services could meet.

Service response to problems in 20 clinical and social competence areas was assessed in 156 long-stay in-patients, using the Needs for Care Assessment (NFC). Although there were few unmet needs for treatment, over 200 instances of unmet needs for the assessment of social skills were found, and reasons for this are discussed, as is the importance of social-skills assessment in this group. In around a third of the sample most of the social-skill areas in the NFC were not applicable.

No abstract