The life expectancy of individuals with intellectual disabilities is increasing. Clinicians of organizations that provide personalized care to individuals with intellectual disabilities experience...Show moreThe life expectancy of individuals with intellectual disabilities is increasing. Clinicians of organizations that provide personalized care to individuals with intellectual disabilities experience complicating factors in the diagnostic process of dementia classification. Identifying domains of (cognitive) functioning underlying the ‘Dementia Scale for individuals with Intellectual Disabilities’ (DSVH) could aid these organizations in the development of personalized care guidelines for individuals with intellectual disabilities and dementia. The aim of this pilot study was to identify potential domains of (cognitive) functioning underlying the DSVH. It was hypothesized that domains regarding mood, aggression, appetite, loss of interest, functional decline (reduced self-care skills), cognitive decline, personality, speech, maladaptive behaviours, disorientation, confusion, environmental awareness, and motor skills would be found. A Multiple Correspondence Analysis was employed to visualize the relationship between different active variables in a sample consisting of 50 participants (n = 50). Domains regarding the presence of forgetfulness, an increase in negative mood, decline in motor skills, decline in orientation in time, decline in responses to stimuli, and a decline in characteristic behaviour were found. The results found in this study suggest that those domains of (cognitive) functioning might be underlying the DSVH, that could be uncovered when the analysis is performed on a sufficiently large and diverse sample in future studies.Show less
