Edentulousness (no natural teeth) and intellectual (learning) disability

Edentulousness: "The property of being edentulous; lack of teeth."

I was brought to talk about edentulousness on this blog as a result of the findings reported by Kinnear and colleagues [1] and their observations suggesting that: "Adults with IDs [intellectual disability] have a high prevalence of edentulousness."

Based on data from an "adult cohort with IDs residing in Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Scotland", researchers compared rates of edentulousness in their 560 adults with ID with (asymptomatic) population data (n=2547) on this issue. The results were pretty worrying as "rates of edentulousness were consistently higher in the ID cohort" across various different age ranges: "9% vs. 1% aged 25-34 years; 22% vs. 2% aged 35-44 years; 39% vs. 7% aged 45-54 years; 41% vs. 18% aged 55-64 years; and 76% vs. 34% aged 65-74 years." Researchers also concluded that edentulousness was quite a bit more likely in those described as having "severe IDs".

When it came to other factors outside of ID severity that might be related to edentulousness, a few issues were observed such as "taking antipsychotics" and "living in the most deprived neighbourhoods." Other variables such as the presence of a diagnosis of autism and "problem behaviours" were are told, did not reach the thresholds for 'sufficient evidence'.

Why is all this important you might ask? Well, for lots of reasons, not least that the Kinnear results potentially highlight the important (continuing) issue of health inequality in relation to learning (intellectual) disability (see here). Indeed, one of my first thoughts when I read the Kinnear results is that quite a few of those news reports about people with learning disabilities that have been seen down the years, show people missing teeth. I can't help thinking what such pictures do for a person and their self-esteem. Even worse, such findings further highlight how for some people with ID, the state of edentulousness is literally forced on them (see here) with little or no regard for the views of them or indeed their loved ones.

Such findings do suggest that organisations need to try harder when it comes to improving the oral health of those with ID. I'm minded to suggest that those people who have a history of poor diet, those who are prone to pica (eating non-edible objects), those who have bruxism (teeth grinding) and/or those who have a history of persistent vomiting should perhaps be afforded particular dental attention. The link with antipsychotic use? Well, I also think more needs to be done in this area. There is already some data on medicines affecting oral hygiene [2] among which antipsychotics seem to have a place. The hows-and-whys need a little more understanding outside of the suggestion of xerostomia (dry mouth). Despite also the lack of any significant link between 'problem behaviours' and edentulousness identified by Kinnear, I'd still like to see whether certain 'challenging behaviours' might be contributory to such a state (see here) and perhaps one reason why antipsychotics were prescribed in the first place?

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[1] Kinnear D. et al. Prevalence of factors associated with edentulousness (no natural teeth) in adults with intellectual disabilities. J Intellect Disabil Res. 2019 May 6.

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Loneliness --> low self-esteem ---> depression?

It was the findings reported by James McCauley and colleagues [1] that prompted today's post. Working on the basis that "there have been few comprehensive investigations of self-esteem in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD)" researchers set out "to assess how youth with ASD rate their self-esteem compared to age-matched TYP [typically developing] youth." Further, how levels of self-esteem (or not) might onward influence "internalizing psychopathology", the fancy phrase for issues such as depression and anxiety.

I don't typically go for grand theories and sweeping generalisations on this blog, particularly when referencing the very large and very diverse autism spectrum. I've not moved over to the 'dark side' of generalisation in this post but am particularly interested in the some of the *associations* talked about my McCauley et al.

Specifically how: "youth with ASD rated their self-esteem significantly lower than did TYP youth" and how self-esteem was "strongly related to depression." Add in the findings reported by Micah Mazurek [2] who observed that "loneliness was associated with increased depression and anxiety and decreased life satisfaction and self-esteem" and some potentially important processes emerge as per the equation titling this post: Loneliness --> low self-esteem ---> depression?

McCauley and colleagues do also talk about how Theory of Mind (ToM) also showed some possible *associations* to elements of their results but I'm not really minded to go into this part of their findings with any great detail. It's not that I don't believe that ToM might not be an issue for some on the autism spectrum, but rather as other results have suggested [3], questions still remain about what ToM actually means and whether other issues (i.e. alexithymia) might predominate in relation to some autism [4] (where the stress is on 'some').

I don't doubt that there are several other important elements potentially influencing things like self-esteem in relation to autism and how it can lead to issues such as depression (see here). Further studies are needed on this topic, including drawing on the autism-not-specifically-mentioned research literature [5]. But insofar as the simplistic relationship set out in the post, there is an obvious area ripe for intervention: loneliness. And on that point, there are options available (see here) if and when desired; accepting that not everyone wants (or needs) lots of people around them all of the time. This perhaps is also where the online world (in moderation) can also come into it's own [6] (I repeat 'in moderation').

Finally, I'll be coming to the findings reported by Cage and colleagues [7] in the not-too-distant-future talking about how "personal acceptance significantly predicted depression" in the context of autism and what role self-esteem might play here too (minus too much psychological fluff and ToM chatter)...

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[1] McCauley JB. et al. Self-Esteem, Internalizing Symptoms, and Theory of Mind in Youth With Autism Spectrum Disorder. J Clin Child Adolesc Psychol. 2017 Oct 19:1-12.

[2] Mazurek MO. Loneliness, friendship, and well-being in adults with autism spectrum disorders. Autism. 2014 Apr;18(3):223-32.

[3] Oakley BF. et al. Theory of mind is not theory of emotion: A cautionary note on the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test. J Abnorm Psychol. 2016 Aug;125(6):818-23.

[4] Trevisan DA. et al. Alexithymia, but not autism spectrum disorder, may be related to the production of emotional facial expressions. Mol Autism. 2016 Nov 11;7:46.

[5] Sowislo JF. & Orth U. Does low self-esteem predict depression and anxiety? A meta-analysis of longitudinal studies. Psychol Bull. 2013 Jan;139(1):213-240.

[6] Sundberg M. Online gaming, loneliness and friendships among adolescents and adults with ASD. Computers in Human Behavior. 2017. Nov 1.

[7] Cage E. et al. Experiences of Autism Acceptance and Mental Health in Autistic Adults. J Autism Dev Disord. 2017 Oct 25.

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