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In Prudhoe Hospital, a large mental-handicap hospital of 1000 residents, it was found that of the 94 deaths that occurred between 1982 and 1986, three were closely associated with the habit of pica. These deaths occurred in severely and profoundly handicapped males, whose average age was 32, compared with an average age of death of 58 for the combined groups of severely and profoundly mentally handicapped patients (22 cases), and an average age of death of 60 for all degrees of handicap (94 cases). It seems likely that the habit of pica constitutes a cause of considerable morbidity and mortality in certain institutionalised patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mentally handicapped people are increasingly being subjected to the stresses of everyday life, and bereavement represents a particularly potent stress. This report considers the case of a mentally handicapped woman whose difficulty in mourning and expressing and sharing grief had a profound effect on her recovery from bereavement and led to her developing an affective psychosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A letter to the editor is presented about senile dementia published in an August 1986 issue of the "British Journal of Psychiatry".