Nursing Care for Individuals with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities: An Integrated Approach

Nurses play a key role in high-quality health care for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD)—and now this up-to-date textbook fully prepares them to provide patients with the best possible services across the lifespan. The most comprehensive text available for nurses who specialize in IDD, this essential book clarifies evidence-based practices and gives readers an integrated, interdisciplinary approach to care that meets each person's individual needs.

Cecily Betz and Wendy Nehring—authors of the respected text Promoting Health Care Transitions for Adolescents with Special Health Care Needs and Disabilities—gather the latest research and wisdom of 18 diverse authorities in the medical field. Together, they give pre- and in-service nurses the foundation of knowledge they need to

• help ensure equal access to health care for people with IDD
• choose from today's models and philosophies of care
• promote their patients' psychosocial development
• provide effective physical care
• conduct health assessments and develop individualized plans of care
• maintain successful interdisciplinary collaboration with other professionals
• address the issues associated with specific disabilities, including autism, Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, fragile X, sensory impairment, and medical and behavioral health problems
• support developmental transitions across the lifespan
• expand their knowledge of genetics and apply it to nursing practice
• skillfully manage ethical and legal issues
• understand the service agencies used by individuals with IDD

Enhanced with clinical practice guidelines to support effective work with individuals who have IDD, this textbook lights every nurse's path to person-centered, evidence-based care that improves their patients' lives.

With contributions from:

• Sarah H. Ailey
• Jean E. Beatson
• Joni Bosch
• Pamela P. DiNapoli
• Jan Dorman
• J. Carolyn Graff
• Martha Wilson Jones
• Felissa R. Lashley
• Mary Theresa Urbano

Dr. Betz has worked with children, adolescents, and families for more than 30 years in a variety of roles as a clinician, educator, administrator, and researcher. She has served as the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Pediatric Nursing, the official journal of the Society of Pediatric Nursing and Pediatric Endocrinology Nursing Society, since the mid-1980s. She has published extensively on topics pertaining to pediatric nursing, developmental disabilities, and health care transition planning for adolescents with special health care needs. Her textbook Pediatric Nursing Reference (Mosby, 2008) is in its sixth edition; this textbook and others she has authored have been translated into three languages. Dr. Betz has been the principal investigator for a number of extramurally funded federal and state grants and has served on a number of regional, state-level, and national professional committees representing the interests of pediatric nurses and adolescents with special health care needs and disabilities. She also served as one of the organizers and founding members of the Society of Pediatric Nursing, a national pediatric nursing association founded nearly 2 decades ago. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing of the American Nurses Association and was formerly the Chair of the Child and Family Expert Panel. In 2008, Dr. Betz received the Margaret S. Miles Service Award from the Society of Pediatric Nurses for her service and contribution to pediatric nursing.

Dr. Nehring joined East Tennessee State University in 2009. Previously, she held administrative and faculty positions at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, and the University of Illinois at Chicago, and a faculty position at Illinois Wesleyan University. She received her doctorate in nursing science from the University of Illinois at Chicago, her master’s degree in pediatric nursing from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and her bachelor’s degree in nursing from Illinois Wesleyan University. Dr. Nehring is nationally and internationally known in the field of intellectual and developmental disabilities. She wrote one of the only history books on nursing in the field of intellectual and developmental disabilities. She and her colleagues revised the Scope and Standards of Practice in this specialty in 2004 for American Nurses Publishing and the American Association on Mental Retardation. Dr. Nehring is also the editor of a core curriculum for nurses and health professionals specializing in the field of intellectual and developmental disabilities (Jones & Bartlett, 2005), an evidence-based practice book on specific health promotion topics and the research that was conducted on these topics with persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities (American Association on Mental Retardation, 2005). She also co-edited a book with Cecily L. Betz on the health concerns of adolescents with special health care needs and disabilities making the transition into adulthood (Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., 2007). She has written, presented, and consulted widely on this nursing specialty, as well as received internal and external funding for her research on people with Down syndrome and neural tube defects. Dr. Nehring is a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD). In 2009, she received the Leadership Award from the AAIDD.