ABSTRACT
In the 1930s, the life expectancy for people in the Unites States with intellectual disability was 19 years. By the 1970s it had risen to 59 years. The increase in life expectancy is generally attributed to major changes in access to medical care as well as some fundamental social changes such as deinstitutionalisation or person-centred philosophies of care. This chapter charts the emergence of new services for an older population of people with intellectual disability. The central argument is that when people with intellectual disability were not expected to live into old age, few services existed for people with intellectual disability as they aged. But as the life expectancy of this population increased, it precipitated a crisis in care that is still being realised in many countries today as they seek to balance the move away from institutional care to community-based services.
