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1. Introduction
Down syndrome, resulting from 21st chromosome trisomy is one of the common genetic causes of intellectual disability. The Down syndrome phenotype includes symptoms affecting multiple body systems, particularly the musculoskeletal, neurological and cardiovascular systems. People with Down syndrome usually have short stature, muscular hypotonia, atlantoaxial instability, decreased neuronal density, cerebellar hypoplasia, intellectual disability and congenital heart defects, especially atrioventricular septal defect (Antonarakis et al., 2020). The life expectancy of people with Down syndrome is increasing over time due to increased access to treatments (Chua et al., 2020; Hughes-McCormack et al., 2020). With increased life expectancy, the number of adults with Down’s syndrome has increased, as has the frequency of their contact with the justice system.
The majority of people with Down syndrome are classified as having mild to moderate mental disabilities. Their cognitive profile shows that they have strong visual learning skills, but weaknesses in verbal working memory and episodic memory (Liogier d'Ardhuy et al., 2015). However, if differences in IQ, language, attention, memory and functional abilities are analysed, a wide range of cognitive qualification will be encountered.
To summarize the key findings on the mental and cognitive characteristics of people with Down syndrome, these individuals generally have variable intellectual disability and multiple health and psychiatric comorbidities. Down syndrome is associated with psychiatric comorbidities in 28.9% of cases. The most common conditions in individuals with Down syndrome include general anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive behaviours, neurodevelopmental disorders, depression and sleep disorders (Dalrymple et al., 2022; Startin et al., 2020). Compared to the general population, people with intellectual disabilities are at much higher risk of behavioural, emotional and psychiatric problems. In this respect, while bipolar disorder and schizophrenia are reported to be relatively less common in adults with Down syndrome, depressive mood, anxiety disorders and Alzheimer’s disease are suggested to be more common in people with Down syndrome than in the general population and people with intellectual disabilities with an aetiology other than Down syndrome (Brizard et al., 2021; Chicoine et al., 2021; Hussain et al., 2020; Santoro et al., 2021).
People with Down’s syndrome are often not treated with the same level of seriousness as other individuals when they are involved as victims or suspects...