Authored by Mohammad Kamrujjaman
Background: A comparative study of supporting services which are available in United Kingdom and Bangladesh for the
children with Down syndrome (DS) and their families were explored in the present research by doing literature review based on
documentary research methodology.
Purpose: The aim of the study was to identify the gaps, discrepancies, merits and demerits between these two countries service
providers for the children with DS and their families.
Methods: Bangladesh and United Kingdom were selected for the
literature review. The literatures were collected from many
sources such as websites, international or national organizations,
public and private organization’s published report, provision and
strategies, e-books, journals, articles and books. The Literatures
reviewed were key sources of evidence to justify findings. Gaps,
discrepancies have also been found in the Government and private sector
providing services.
Discussion: There are some similarities, merits and demerits have also identified by exploring services which are available in
United Kingdom and Bangladesh for proving services for the children with DS and their families. Some recommendations have been
suggested for the authority who deals with the children with DS and their families.
Conclusion: It has been stated that except accessible roads, schools and transportation for the children with DS, without trained
and enough professionals and staffs who can deal with DS children and their families properly, and improper management among
stakeholders can make very challenging for DS children and their families to get proper services.
Keywords: Down syndrome; Literature review; Supporting services; Public & private organization
Introduction
Down syndrome (DS) is a genetic condition that results in
some level of learning disability and a particular range of physical
characteristics. Learning disability can affect a person to learn very
new things into their every aspect of their life including at school
[1]. Therefore, children with DS can have difficulty in learning
new things, understanding information, communicating properly,
confronting a complex situation, and/ or coping independently. In
addition of learning disabilities, children with DS may have various
kinds of health-related problems such as CHD (Congenital Heart
Disease), vision problems, hearing loss, infections, hypothyroidism,
blood disorders, poor muscle tone, sleep disorders, gum or dental
problems, epilepsy, digestive problems, mental and emotional
problems, and so on [2]. Hence, a different type of supporting
services like educational, emotional, financial, recreational rather
than medical services is needed for dealing with DS children. DS
can be detected from mother’s womb to after birth. There are
many screening programmes which can be carried out during
pregnancy. During this screening programme, every mother should
get proper guidelines and idea about what to do if the outcome is
positive or negative. Education can be provided to the children with
DS either at special school or mainstream school according to the
parent’s desire or the present condition of that child. As children
with DS have associated health problems as well as they require
special care, their parent’s may face financial problem to look after
them. Therefore, children with DS require supporting services
from being their mother’s womb till lifelong. United Kingdom is a
country of 63,136,000 populations. Among them, almost 60,000
people are living with DS as every year one in every 1000 babies
are born with this condition [3]. Unfortunately, Bangladesh does
not have studies to say how many people are suffering from the
chromosomal disorder like a DS. But some organizations who work
with children with DS has estimated that about 200,000 individuals
are suffering from DS in Bangladesh, this estimation has been made
based on the global trend that one in every 800 children born with
this chromosomal abnormality though. The children with DS begin
to get their services from a different type of health care providing
institutions as prenatal screening and diagnostic test. Supporting
health care services can be public funded and/ or private hospital,
clinic, and diagnostic centre. As the prenatal screening or diagnostic
test is to be done on the pregnant woman, therefore proper, realistic,
unprejudiced knowledge about the test should be provided to them
before going to test. Thus, prenatal screening and diagnostic test is
related to health care providing institutions, health care providers,
professionals and services provided information about test and DS,
and government policies. Therefore, this study will be looked at all
the services regarding prenatal and diagnostic test both in UK and
Bangladesh in order to compare their services. Mother of a child
with DS may face various problems when she noticed that she has
given birth a child with DS. Yildirim et al. [4] state that this
situation
exposes mothers to intense stress and emotional problems such
as denial, anxiety, anger, guilt, unexpected crisis, avoidance of
facing external world’s attitude, disappointment, decrease in
selfconfidence
and self-respect. As individuals with DS have associated
medical problems, so referral and getting access to specialized
professionals according to their problems need to be done.
Supporting services may take useful steps to do this. Specialized
education and interventions can greatly benefit children with DS
[5]. All children place a financial burden upon their parents because
of their special needs for therapy, toy, medical procedures, and
additional care. Except for financial supporting services, it may be
difficult for a nation without universal health care systems in order
to raise a child with DS. The research will explore the services for the
children with DS and their families which are provided by the both
UK and Bangladesh in order to get a comparison study. By exploring
the services, the research will be looked at the gaps, advantages,
disadvantages, similarities between these two countries’ services
and trying to find out the potential reasons which are lie to know
the present condition of the supporting services which are mostly
used and accessed by the children with DS ages from 0 to 18 years
and their families.
To read more about this article...Open access Journal of Current Trends in Clinical & Medical Sciences
Please follow the URL to access more information about this article
https://irispublishers.com/ctcms/fulltext/comparative-study-of-supporting-services-for-children-with-downs-syndrome-and-their-families.ID.000501.php
To know more about our Journals...Iris Publishers
To know about open access Publisher
To know more about our Journals...Iris Publishers
To know about open access Publisher
No comments:
Post a Comment