Health Care and the Autism Spectrum: A Guide for Health Professionals, Parents and Carers

Alison Morton-Cooper

ISBN 10: 1853029637 / ISBN 13: 9781853029639

Published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2004

About this Item

Most items will be dispatched the same or the next working day. A copy that has been read but remains in clean condition. All of the pages are intact and the cover is intact and the spine may show signs of wear. The book may have minor markings which are not specifically mentioned.

Seller Inventory # wbs6360088270

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Health Care and the Autism Spectrum: A Guide for Health Professionals, Parents and Carers
• Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
• Publication Date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1853029637
• ISBN 13: 9781853029639
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: Good
• Weight: 200 grams

About this title

Synopsis

"You'll just feel a little scratch then it will all be over." This well-worn phrase to reassure patients about injections is unlikely to win over the patient if they happen to have autism. Communication difficulties, sensory overload and extreme discomfort with physical contact are all traits common in autism that make basic patient care and routine medical procedures extremely difficult.

In a patient who is exquisitely sensitive to touch, how do you go about taking blood pressure or dressing a wound? How can you be sure that your autistic patient has given `informed' consent to treatment if you aren't sure that they have really understood the implications? What do you do about it? Equally, for people with autism, or the parent or carer of someone on the spectrum, healthcare issues loom very large in daily concerns.

Health Care and the Autism Spectrum is a ground-breaking volume that addresses the ethical issues as well as the practical challenges that everyone involved has to deal with. Every health care professional will have an increasing number of autistic patients on their list as diagnosis of this condition continues to spiral. Consequently, this book is urgently needed.

About the Author

Alison Morton-Cooper has had many years of experience in the field of health care, in health services journalism, as a health educator and latterly as a senior nurse and lecturer in continuing professional education. Her MEd and PhD in Continuing Education from the University of Warwick, England, led to substantive research as to the ways health professionals learn best from practice. Last but not least, she is the mother of a teenage son diagnosed as having high functioning autism, and she is an experienced advocate for families affected by autism.