Study of physical health needs of people with learning disabilities living in the community

The health care needs of people with learning disabilities continue to present a challenge to the services. Recent studies on health needs of community based population of people with learning disabilities have shown a high prevalence of health problems, deficits in recognition of these and reduction in health promotion. The purpose of this study is to measure the level of physical health needs and how they are met in a sample of population with learning disabilities living in the community. Though the sample in the project was small (n = 15), all of them had some form of physical disorder and it confirms that people with a learning disability have a high prevalence of physical disorder. Hence proactive comprehensive health checks is a way forward in meeting health care needs of this group of people. There is a need to educate the carers, highlight the physical health needs of this group of people to the GPs and support their routine visits to the GPs and specialist clinics through the community teams for people with learning disabilities.