Risk of early death is double for autistic young people, ‘scary’ new research finds

flambonkscious, 3 months ago

And here I was thinking it was about accidents and self harm… Sheesh, it’s a mess

Helix, 3 months ago

International research had identified medical conditions such as cancer and heart disease, accidents - especially choking and poisoning - and medication complications as leading causes of death among autistic people.

I bet suicide risk is also higher as autistic people are often bullied and driven to suicide by being deemed failures in society. Especially autists with an IQ which is not above average hardly have access to good health care and friends.

RedditWanderer, 3 months ago

International research had identified medical conditions such as cancer and heart disease, accidents - especially choking and poisoning - and medication complications as leading causes of death among autistic people.

“The rates of medication are higher amongst autistic children and adolescents than the general population, and given what we’ve seen from international data saying that medication complications are one of the main causes of death in this group, we’d expect it’s similar in the New Zealand group as well,” Thabrew said.

“Particularly for those who might be more severely autistic, or intellectually impaired, often behaviours are managed using medication, partly because of lack of other services.”