Intellectual disability nursing throughout the lifespan

In this chapter, students of nursing will explore the nature of learning disabilities throughout the lifespan and its relationship to learning disability nursing. This will be contextualized within the Nursing and Midwifery Council for the United Kingdom (2018) and Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland (2016) standards and requirements for competence.
A learning/intellectual disability is a lifelong condition, and it is therefore not unusual for learning disability nurses to work with, or offer support to, people with learning disabilities throughout their lifespans, quite literally from the cradle to the grave. Holistic approaches in learning disability nursing seek to promote interventions that adopt a whole-person-centred approach. This means providing nursing that responds to the various dimensions of being, and these typically include attention to the physical, emotional, social, economic, and spiritual needs of people.