People with intellectual disability experience poor health outcomes in comparison to the general population. Many common health conditions are missed or poorly managed in this population group.
Approximately 90% of people with intellectual disability take medication/s. Medication management is important in ensuring that medicines are taken safely. Safeguarding practices involve checking that appropriate medication is prescribed, take, and ongoing monitoring of medicine use.
Join us for an education and training event in the ‘Better health care for people with intellectual disability – PCEP’ project. People with intellectual disability have the right to receive good health care. This webinar focuses on providing information on how to better prescribe medication and support people with intellectual disability.
The learning objectives covered in this event are:
- Describe the considerations that need to be taken when prescribing psychotropics to people with intellectual disability for the management of behaviour.
- Recognise the need for regularly monitoring the effects and adverse effects of psychotropics
- Address the medication-related issues commonly encountered in those with intellectual disability prescribed psychotropics
- Explain how medication management services could be utilised in practice to support those with intellectual disability.
- Understand basic principles of deprescribing psychotropics
- Recognise how the skills of the interdisciplinary team can be used to support people with intellectual disability and behaviours of concern to achieve better health outcomes and quality of life.
Speaker information:
Dr Manya Angley is registered pharmacist and an Advanced Practice Pharmacist. She is also credentialled to conducted collaborative medication reviews For the first 20 years of her career, she was a teaching and research academic. Her research has mainly focused on continuity of care and medication management in developmental disorders. Early in 2010 she established Manya Angley Research and Consulting (MARAC). She has been a general practice pharmacist at East Adelaide Health Care since 2012. MARAC holds contracts to deliver Quality Use of Medicines Services and Residential Medication Management Reviews at various aged care homes in Adelaide. Manya is passionate about ensuring older people and people with intellectual and developmental disability receive the best health care available. She provided a testimonial at the Disability Royal Commission in September 2020 highlighting the potential benefits of credentialled pharmacists in interdisciplinary teams for people with disability. Manya was the proud recipient of the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia (SA/NT Branch) Pharmacist of the Year (2021) and the Australian Association of Consultant Pharmacy MIMS Consultant Pharmacist of the Year (2021).
Manya has recently registered as a NDIS Positive Behaviour Support Practitioner (PBSP) which is an opportunity to integrate her professional and lived experiences as a carer of family members with dementia and intellectual disability. From July 2023 she has been the president of the SA/NT Branch of the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia.
Juanita Breen has a varied background as a military, community, GP, and academic pharmacist. She completed a PhD at the University of Tasmania in 2011 on roles for pharmacists in ensuring appropriate psychotropic use in residential aged care. Her MJA paper won the 2019 AMA Stawell award for the most impactful research paper during 2018/19, was awarded the Outstanding Achiever Award at the 2018 Tasmanian community Achievement awards and testified at the Aged Care Royal Commission. She currently consults for the aged care quality and safety commission, is a research associate at the Wicking Dementia Centre and performs the occasional medication review.
Dr Angela Livingstone is a psychiatrist who grew up in Melbourne and studied Medicine at Melbourne University, then completed her specialty training at St Vincent’s Hospital. She worked at one time in the Victorian Office of the Chief Psychiatrist, and since 2008 has specialised in the area of intellectual disability psychiatry with the Victorian Dual Disability Service. She has a wealth of experience in the psychopharmacology of people with intellectual disability and autism spectrum disorder. Dr Livingstone provides a number of clinics in North west & South of Tasmania each year.
Dr Jane Cooper is a rural generalist in Devonport, Tasmania where she is owner principal GP at Don Medical Clinic. The clinic originated as an on-campus clinic at a local educational institution. She has an interest in adolescent health but the GP clinic provides care across the spectrum of ages. The experience working on-campus allowed her to develop an understanding of the complex needs of young people but in particular young people with special needs. The on-campus environment provided an opportunity to practice collaborative multidisciplinary care, that included the educational team of teachers, social workers, and youth workers, alongside community-based services be that government and non-government providers. A similar approach to care was applied to patients in her practice with intellectual disability of various ages.