Life expectancy for persons with Down syndrome has increased over the past 100 years and today ranges around 60 years of age. Improvement in health care and especially a change toward a more positive attitude toward this population has resulted in this trend. This study was conducted to learn the trend of the population of persons with Down syndrome in residential care in Israel.
Methods: An annual questionnaire sent to the medical clinics in all residential care centers for the 1998-2006 period was analyzed to study the trend of the number of persons with Down syndrome.
Results: This survey revealed that the population has been relatively stable over the years with around 500 to 600 persons or about 9% of the total population in residential care. In 2006, a decrease was observed with a total of 529 persons or 7.73% of the total residential care population.
Conclusions: The annual questionnaire did not provide details about the Down syndrome population besides its numbers, and we therefore recommend further study of this population in more detail to learn how to keep this population healthy with a good quality of life.