Keypoints

Worldwide, people with intellectual disabilities are disadvantaged, and their specific palliative care needs have not been widely considered.

• Those with intellectual disabilities have an increasing need for palliative care services because they are living longer and are developing age related conditions such as cancer, cardiovascular disorders, and respiratory disease.

• Persons with intellectual disabilities have the typical palliative care needs of the general population, but they may also have additional and special needs.

• Additional and special needs may refer to issues of communication, symptom assessment, conceptualisation of illness and death, truth telling, consent, and capacity.

• The intellectual disabled are at increased risk for complicated grief reactions. Staff and caregivers have traditionally underestimated the impact of loss for people with intellectual disabilities in terms of psychiatric and behavioural morbidity.