What Does ‘Old’ or ‘Older’ Mean for the Cohort of People With Intellectual Disabilities? An Alternative Approach to Defining Commencement of Ageing in a Given Population

Background: Within both the mainstream and the intellectual disability sectors, there is a current focus on the predicted impacts of an ‘ageing’ population, and how to best respond to emerging support issues. However, one of the fundamental questions pivotal to determining when interventions should begin remains unanswered; when does ‘ageing’ commence for people with intellectual disabilities?

Aim: This commentary aims to stimulate discussion around the definition of ageing by proposing a different way to conceptualise a commencement point. Working retrospectively from a given cohort's life expectancy figure, the commencement of ageing is argued to be the point from which age‐related health comorbidities significantly impact that population.

Conclusions: It is not suggested that this approach is the answer to defining the commencement of ageing; instead, it is proposed as a different way to conceptualise ageing for people with intellectual disabilities to facilitate meaningful comparisons with mainstream peer cohorts.