Emergency and Urgent Hospital-Based Care

This chapter addresses the needs of people with intellectual impairment including learning disability, cognitive impairment, and brain injury, when attending hospital in emergency and unplanned situations. Throughout the focus will be on the client and how healthcare professionals can improve what is potentially a very distressing experience for them. Staff who feel unprepared for working with clients with intellectual impairment can also be distressed by the diffi culties in assessing and managing someone who is injured, in pain, and frightened - particularly when the client is expressing this in ways that may appear confused or are problematic to assess. Therefore recommendations will be made at intrapersonal, interpersonal and organizational levels.