Medical aspects of school‐aged children with Down syndrome

Abstract

Current and comprehensive information about the medical issues affecting children with Down syndrome (DS) is of value in counselling parents who are considering prenatal diagnosis and in planning services for people with DS as they age, especially given the continued improvements in their survival. Parents of school-aged children (mean age 11.37 years, 57.3% male, 42.7% female) with DS were identified by linking registers from the Disability Services Commission and the Birth Defects Registry. Less than half the children had cardiac and bowel conditions. More than half had ear conditions and more than three quarters had eye conditions. Ear, nose, and throat professionals were the specialists seen most often and the rate of tympanostomy tube insertion was nearly 17 times that of the general childhood population. Children with DS were over five times more likely to wear glasses than other children. These findings suggest that chronic, non life-threatening conditions impose a burden on families but do not threaten quality of life.

Hospitalizations among people with Down syndrome: A nationwide population‐based study in Denmark

“…We found that malformations, diseases of the respiratory system, and diseases of the nervous system or sensory organs were the main reasons for hospitalization among people with DS, in accordance with most studies [Turner et al, 1990; Hilton et al, 1999; Leonard et al, 1999; Frid et al, 2002; van Trotsenburg et al, 2006; So et al, 2007; Schieve et al, 2009; Thomas et al, 2011]. Our finding that persons with DS who had congenital heart defects were more likely to be hospitalized and to stay longer in the hospital than persons with DS who did not have cardiac malformations is also in agreement with previous reports [Hilton et al, 1999; Frid et al, 2002; So et al, 2007].…”

The impact of having a sibling with an intellectual disability: parental perspectives in two disorders

“…Subjects in the cohort were ascertained from two sources: the population‐based Western Australian Birth Defects Registry (BDR) (Bower et al. 2000) and the Disability Services Commission (DSC), a multidisciplinary government body responsible for co‐ordinating the medical and therapy services for all people with an ID in Western Australia (Leonard et al. 1999).…”

“…While siblings of children with Down syndrome have been the subject of small studies, there have been no reports involving population‐based samples. Our research group has for some years been undertaking population‐based research both on Down syndrome (Leonard et al. 1999), and on Rett syndrome (Laurvick et al.…”

Prevalence of constipation in people with intellectual disability: A systematic review

“…Only one study employed a sample frame (general practices in the Netherlands) broadly representative of people with intellectual disability (Straetmans, van Schrojenstein Lantman-de Valk, Schellevis, & Dinant, 2007). A further six studies employed a sample broadly representative of people with intellectual disability from a particular subpopulation: Down syndrome (Alexander et al, 2015;Yin, Boyd, Pacheco, Schonfeld, & Bove, 2012), children with Down syndrome (Leonard, Bower, Petterson, & Leonard, 1999;Thomas et al, 2011), children with severe generalized cerebral palsy (Veugelers et al, 2010), and adults with ASD (Jones et al, 2015).…”