Correspondence
We declare that we have no conflicts of interest.
*Limor Aharonson-Daniel,
Carolina Tannenbaum-Baruchi,
Paula Feder-Bubis
limorad@bgu.ac.il
Department of Emergency Medicine and Department
of Health Systems Management, Faculty of Health
Sciences, and PREPARED Center for Emergency
Response Research, Ben-Gurion University of the
Negev, PO Box 653, 84105 Beer-Sheva, Israel
1
2
3
4
The Lancet. The health of deaf people:
communication breakdown. Lancet 2012;
379: 977.
Alexander A, Ladd P, Powell S. Deafness might
damage your health. Lancet 2012; 379: 979–81.
Fellinger J, Holzinger D, Pollard R. Mental health
of deaf people. Lancet 2012; 379: 1037–44.
Tannenbaum-Baruchi C, Aharonson-Daniel L,
Feder-Bubis P. The needs of deaf people during
an emergency situation in Southern Israel.
Presentated at the IPREDII conference,
Tel-Aviv, Israel; January, 2012.
history-taking but it is often the focus
of the assessment, providing essential
clues about cognitive function. Deaf
people display different cognitive
competencies that arise through
auditory deprivation and exposure
to visuospatial, rather than spoken,
language, but no neuropsychological
tests are validated or normed for
use with deaf signers. Even use of
highly experienced interpreters is
inappropriate, unreliable, and errorprone,5 since psychological validity is
lost in translation.
The development of specialist
neurology services for deaf patients
is vital to overcome these problems.
A new monthly Cognitive Disorder
Clinic for deaf patients at the UK’s
National Hospital for Neurology and
Neurosurgery already has a 6-month
waiting list. We suggest that this is the
tip of the iceberg.
We declare that we have no conflicts of interest.
joanna.atkinson@ucl.ac.uk
I am Chief Executive of the MRC. I am also head of
the College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine at
the University of Edinburgh.
Deafness, Cognition and Language Research Centre,
University College London, London WC1H 0PD, UK
John Savill
*Joanna Atkinson, Bencie Woll
1
2
It was heartening to see The Lancet1
outline the barriers that deaf sign
language users face in accessing
general and mental health care. We
would like to draw attention to a third
overlooked arena: the lack of access to
neurology services.
Neurological disorders affect an estimated 6000–8000 deaf signers in the
UK alone. These individuals experience
serious under-representation in clinical
referrals and inappropriate assessment,
with adverse implications for accurate
and timely diagnosis and treatment.2,3
Our current study of dementia in
deaf people shows a pattern of late
diagnosis. A typical experience is
described by Parker and colleagues.4
Accurate diagnosis in the early stage
of neurological disease is a particular
challenge in deaf patients since not
only is communication a barrier to
www.thelancet.com Vol 379 June 16, 2012
discovery science, right across the UK.
This research is crucial for subsequent
translation into improvements in the
prevention, diagnosis, and management of disease. Over the past few
years, the MRC has maintained a basic
medical science spend of more than
£400 million per year. Furthermore,
the MRC has protected 3-year project
grants and early career fellowships,
with 113 and 97, respectively,
awarded in 2010–11. Indeed, 2011–12
has proved to be a record year for
new investigator project grants,
with 26 awards and a 28% success
rate, based on our research boards’
enthusiasm for iterative interaction
with colleagues starting out as
university-funded investigators.
Early-career basic scientists in the
UK’s
research-intensive
medical
schools should take heart—the MRC is
still here to support you, because your
research will help change lives.2
3
4
5
The Lancet. The health of deaf people:
communication breakdown. Lancet 2012;
379: 977.
Marshall J, Atkinson JA, Thacker A, Woll B. Is
speech and language therapy meeting the
needs of language minorities? The case of deaf
people with neurological impairments.
Int J Lang Comm Disord 2003; 38: 85–94.
Atkinson J, Denmark T, Woll B, et al. Deaf with
dementia: towards better recognition and
services. J Dementia Care 2011; 19: 38–39.
Parker J, Young A, Rogers K. “My Mum’s story”:
a deaf daughter discusses her deaf mother’s
experience of dementia. Dementia 2010; 9: 5–20.
Hill-Briggs F, Dial JG, Morere DA, Joyce A.
Neuropsychological assessment of persons
with physical disability, visual impairment or
blindness, and hearing impairment or deafness.
Arch Clin Neuropsychol 2007; 22: 389–404.
Catastrophic neglect of
basic sciences in
medicine
Your doom-laden Editorial (April 7,
p 1273)1 glosses over the UK Medical
Research Council’s (MRC’s) strong and
continuing commitment to funding
UIG via Getty Images
an era of security risk during mass
gatherings and occasional bombings
of civilian populations, the system
should be constantly ready.
Finally, barriers to health-care provision are also obstacles to studying
the health of deaf people. Recruitment
of a researcher who is part of the deaf
community enables a bottom-up
approach towards problems and their
solutions and is highly recommended,
wherever possible.4
john.savill@headoffice.mrc.ac.uk
Medical Research Council, London WC2B 4AN, UK
1
2
The Lancet. Catastrophic neglect of the basic
sciences in medicine. Lancet 2012; 379: 1273.
Medical Research Council. Research changes
lives: MRC strategic plan 2009–2014. http://
www.mrc.ac.uk/About/Strategy/
StrategicPlan2009-2014/index.htm (accessed
May 23, 2012).
Assuming that the ultimate goal of
basic scientists and health professionals (and The Lancet) is to improve
and sustain the wellbeing of humanity,
I wish to place your Editorial1 on the
neglect of the basic sciences in a wider
context than that of medicine.
From this perspective, what one
observes is a neglect of basic services
leading to catastrophic health consequences—eg, 8·5% of deaths in
south and southeast Asia are due to
diarrhoea, of which 88% results from
poor sanitation and dirty water.2 This is
despite the availability of cost-effective
and simple technology (ie, pipe-borne
water) for centuries.3 Inappropriate
For the Deaf People with
Dementia Research Project see
http://www.nursing.manchester.
ac.uk/deafwithdementia/
2239