Intellectually disabled excluded from digital age

THREE out of four adults with an intellectual disability have never written, texted, emailed or used social media to contact their family or friends, a study has found.

Launched yesterday, the report, Growing Older with an Intellectual Disability, also found that less than 60% of people with an intellectual disability used the telephone to make contact with family and friends. Also, adults with an intellectual disability were less likely to own a mobile phone than other adults in the Irish population.

The authors of the report said it was “a concern” that people with an intellectual disability seem to have been excluded from the digital age.

The research also found the levels of income secured through wages and disability allowances equated with poverty by other Irish citizens. Many people with an intellectual disability also did not know how much money they had available, did not collect those funds themselves and relied upon service providers’ central funds to manage the dispersing and use of these resources.

In terms of health outcomes, younger adults with an intellectual disability had a much higher incidence of disease and identifiable risk factors for conditions such as coronary artery disease and stroke, than same age and older cohorts in the general population.

The prevalence of diabetics in the 50-to-64 year old age-group was double that found for the general population. Women within the mild to moderate range of intellectual disability were at the greatest risk. More than 60% of adults with an intellectual disability were found to be overweight or obese.

However, on a more positive note, the report found people with intellectual disability enjoy life as they get older. Most had a hobby, went on holidays or day trips, engaged in regular leisure pursuits and had social contacts with others.

However, they were found to seldom engaged in social activities with friends outside their home and that families had limited roles in their lives.

The study represents the first results from the Intellectual Disability Supplement to The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (IDS-TILDA), a national representative study of 753 people with an intellectual disability aged 40 and over, and the most comprehensive study ever conducted on ageing in persons with an intellectual disability in Ireland.

It is the only study of its kind able to directly compare findings for people with an intellectual disability with findings on ageing in the general population.

Commenting on the findings, principal investigator of the study and head of the school of nursing and midwifery at Trinity College, Professor Mary McCarron said the study will help inform policy decisions into the future.

“Over time, IDS-TILDA will provide a comprehensive picture of the lives of this population group as they age in Ireland, and it will identify through in-depth comparative analyses, the similarities or differences within the intellectual disability population group, and compare its findings directly to the general ageing population,” she said.