[Mortality patterns of non-institutionalized severely retarded children in Tokyo--the third report 1999-2001]

We investigated mortality patterns of severely retarded children who were cared at their homes in Tokyo ten years after our first report. During the past two and a half years (from April 1999 to September 2001), we identified 41 fatal cases. The annual case fatality rate (the mortality rate among the investigated children) was 8.2@1000 in all the school-attending children and was 10.1@1000 in children with severe motor and intellectual disabilities. The rate was less than half of that in our past report and seemed to the lowest among those in several studies. Aggravation of basal disorders, severe respiratory infections and/or sepsis, and unexplained sudden death accounted for most of the death. We conclude that advance of medical service and the propagated medical education of teachers working for special schools play an important role to reduce the mortality in severely retarded children.