What are Profound and Multiple Learning Disabilities?
Achieve Together supports people with profound and multiple learning disabilities within specially-adapted services. We provide support for complex health and neurological conditions that can be life-threatening including severe epilepsy, motor neurone disease and spinal cord complications. In the majority of cases these conditions mean that specialist healthcare is required due to reliance on, for example, assisted ventilation and/or Gastrostomy, Duodenostomy or Jejunostomy feeding.
How can we help?
Where appropriate, Achieve Together invests in a wide range of Assistive Technology (AT), specialised equipment and communication aids that enable individuals to access meaningful activities and maintain independence. For example, the people we support use switch technology so that they can turn their lights or washing machines on or off without assistance.
Our communication resource bank includes high and low technology aids that individuals with profound and multiple learning disabilities use to communicate their individual feelings and wishes. These aids include choice boards, Go Talk systems and MegaBee (using eye movement to communicate). In addition, our PMLD services have access to switch interfaces, joysticks and trackerballs which people use to access computers and webcams for education, leisure and social purposes.
Achieve Together’s Healthcare and Therapy Team for PMLD includes a dedicated speech and language therapist, specialist nurse, dietician, occupational therapist and physiotherapist. The team provides specialist healthcare training to our staff, monitors staff competencies in relation to medication and healthcare procedures and assists with therapy programmes.
Read more about our support for individuals with PMLD
Learn more about the core and essential service standards for supporting people with PMLD
