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Query: UMLS:C0025362 (mental retardation)
 15,878 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

The problem of feeblemindedness has been approached from a social point of view. Newer researches in socialisation have increasingly pointed out mental retardation not to be only a matter of hereditary factors, but largely determined by social environment. If it is true that one is born a retardate, it is true in a social sense. Not so much determined by genetic deficiency, but due to social environment efficient so early as in utero the retardate is born with the stigma of a "Paria". Possibilities of improvement are discussed, more attention should be given to largely unemployed areas of personal development and interpersonal communication.
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PMID:[Feeblemindedness and its treatment]. 68 69

Inadequate treatment of mood (affective) disorders is related to the mind/body dualism, desinformation about methods of treatment, the stigma of psychiatry, low funding of psychiatric research, low educational priority, and slow acquisition of new knowledge of psychiatry. The "respectable minority rule" has often been accepted without regard to the international expertise, and the consequences of undertreatment have not been weighed against the benefits of optimal treatment. The risk of chronicity increases with delayed treatment, and inadequately treated affective disorders are a leading cause of suicide. During the past 20 years the increase in suicide mortality in Norway has been the second largest in the world. Severe mood disorders are often misclassified as schizophrenia or other non-affective psychoses. Atypical mood disorders, notably rapid cycling and bipolar mixed states, are often diagnosed as personality, adjustment, conduct, attention deficit, or anxiety disorders, and even mental retardation. Neuroleptic drugs may suppress the most disturbing features of mood disorders, a fact often misinterpreted as supporting the diagnosis of a schizophrenia-like disorder. Treatment with neuroleptics is not sufficient, however, and serious side effects may often occur. The consequences are too often social break-down and post-depression syndrome.
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PMID:[Inadequate treatment of affective disorders]. 141 90

Building upon Goffman's idea of a courtesy stigma (a stigma acquired as a result of being related to a person with a stigma), I examined how family members maintain community ties while coping with a child who clearly disvalues them. In the early 1970s, I reported that parents develop strategies to make an unmanageable problem manageable. In this paper the various responses to the courtesy stigma concept were examined with regard to the field of mental retardation in particular and disability in general. Also examined was how the social attribution of stigma serves to create distinctions, moral and otherwise, in our society.
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PMID:Courtesy stigma revisited. 143 79

A growing body of research has documented the existence of the problem of stigma among people with mental retardation. Normalization-based services often seem to collude with current consensus, which indicates that the best way to cope with stigma is by "passing" for "normal." In the present paper we presented an alternative method of dealing with stigma, namely, group therapy based on the two paradigms of loss and consciousness raising. In talking about their experiences with retardation and stigma, seven group members passed through six stages: denial, statement, recognition, exploration, meaning, and acceptance. Implications of this approach for working with people who have mental retardation were discussed.
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PMID:Group processes involved in coming to terms with a mentally retarded identity. 229 Mar 80

The Tamang of the Kathmandu Valley have an agrarian society with little demand for literacy and schooling, yet they recognize and label mental retardation. The criteria for labeling are based partially upon insufficiency of intelligence and behavioral adaptation but primarily upon speech incompetence. There is stigma attached to the label, and it has a limiting effect upon social status and role. While the Western conception of mental deficiency is not primarily contingent upon verbal ability, speech function is a consideration in the evaluation of intelligence, as is the case in other parts of the world. In fact, verbal skill is one useful referent for future cross-cultural research on mental deficiency.
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PMID:Concepts of mental deficiency among the Tamang of Nepal. 735 8

Health practitioners (N = 665) from the Chinese, Italian, German, Greek, Arabic and Anglo Australian communities used social distance scales to rate the attitudes of people in their communities toward 20 disability groups. Significant differences were found in community attitudes toward people with 19 of these disabilities. Overall the German community expressed greatest acceptance of people with disabilities, followed by the Anglo, Italian, Chinese, Greek and Arabic groups. However the relative degree of stigma attached to the various disabilities by the communities was very similar. In all communities, people with asthma, diabetes, heart disease and arthritis were the most, and people with AIDS, mental retardation, psychiatric illness and cerebral palsy, the least accepted of the disability groups. These stigma hierarchies were remarkably similar to other hierarchies reported over the last 23 years. The findings have important implications for people with disabilities and health practitioners in multicultural societies.
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PMID:Attitudes towards disabilities in a multicultural society. 845 31

Epilepsy, and the treatment thereof, has effects on many aspects of life, with far-reaching implications for the patient, his family and the community. Epilepsy causes a great deal of social difficulties and restrictions due to the associated stigma and prejudice. It is not a rare condition and is associated with many other conditions, such as schizophrenia, mental retardation, autism, and terminal Alzheimer's disease. Other associated disorders may include cognitive difficulties, personality disturbances or psychoses of various types and durations. Only by the 1850's was epilepsy defined as a "neurological" disease.
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PMID:Epilepsy and the law. 957 13

This article provides a discussion of deficiencies in the data collection on disabilities in Pakistan, identifies data sources, and makes recommendations for improving the quality of the data. Major trends in disabilities are identified. In Pakistan, there is social stigma attached to persons with disabilities. Disabilities are concealed within families so as not to limit the marriage prospects of relatives who might otherwise be suspected of carrying defective genes. Religion perpetuates superstitions about the disabled. Families bear an extra expense in caring for a disabled member, due to loss of additional labor, increased demands on resources for taking care of the disabled member, and increased need to compensate with higher fertility. There is a lack of social institutional support for care of the disabled. The population censuses of 1961 and 1981 were the first to collect information on the disabled. The inadequacy of census data led to the initiation of a national survey in 1984/85 for collecting data on blindness, deafness, mutism, leprosy, retardation, lameness, and handicaps. A special in-depth survey on disabilities was also conducted in Islamabad and Rawalpindi districts in 1986. This survey focused on mental retardation, visual and hearing disabilities, deformity and wasting of the limbs, and physical disabilities, such as paralysis. This survey was the most valid but it was not comparable to prior surveys. Trends indicate a smaller number of disabled at older ages. Specific disabilities by age showed some peculiar age patterns that suggest unreliability. Data from the 1984/85 survey show higher sex ratios for all disabilities for certain provinces compared to the national ratios. If the trend accurately reflects increased disabilities, the education of high risk groups must be improved, accessibility to medical care must be increased, and the population needs to be educated about the disabled. Government social programs need more accurate assessments of the causes of disability and the extent and duration of disablement.
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PMID:The population of persons with disabilities in Pakistan. 1231 84

In Japan, most lawbreakers with psychiatric disorders are committed to hospital by order of the relevant prefectural governor under the Mental Health Act. This can be called the "compulsory treatment policy" for psychiatric patients. On the other hand, most law-breakers with mental retardation (except those with severe and profound retardation) are prosecuted and sentenced to imprisonment under the Criminal Law. This can be called the "strictly judicial policy" for mildly or moderately retarded people. In my opinion, instead of either compulsory treatment or strict justice, "compassionate justice", or welfare support in the field of justice, is crucial to protect individuals with psychiatric disorders and/or mental retardation from the stigma of criminality.
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PMID:[Legal welfare for lawbreakers with mental retardation]. 1456 Jun 35

As a result of deinstitutionalization, individuals with mental retardation (MR) were moved into the community and primary care practices. Residential agency directors now routinely determine health care decisions. Understanding of issues involved in acquiring services and the clinical decision-making experiences of 13 service agency directors representing 1,400 individuals with MR were investigated. This descriptive study with a qualitative exploratory design included structured interviews that were content analyzed. Four themes describe the barriers encountered, which resulted in the delay or denial of appropriate health services. These themes include effects of stigma, knowledge limitations, resource deficits, and inconsistent decision making. Knowledge of these experiences will assist nurses in problem solving and advocating for the holistic competent care of individuals with MR.
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PMID:Acquiring medical services for individuals with mental retardation in community-based housing facilities. 1610 33


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