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The purpose of this paper is to assess the level of perceived health and quality of life of elderly prisoners in France, and to see whether there is a link between aging, time spent in prison and level of education and scores for perceived health and quality of life.

The authors’ recruited 138 male prisoners aged 50 and over in seven French prisons. The research protocol comprised a semi-structured interview and two scales.

The results revealed low levels of perceived health and quality of life among the elderly inmates. They also showed that age was not statistically associated with most of the dimensions of perceived health on the Nottingham Health Profile (NHP), with the exception of poor mobility. By contrast, age was statistically associated with most of the dimensions of quality of life on the WHOQOL-Bref. Time spent in prison was only associated negatively with the “sleep” dimension of the NHP. Emotional reactions were perceived most positively by the inmates with the highest level of education.

It seems particularly important to assess the perceived health and quality of life of elderly prisoners in order to ensure their appropriate treatment and management.

Very few studies have examined the perceived health and quality of life of prisoners, even though this population is particularly vulnerable in terms of physical and mental health.

Studies on intellectual disabilities describe difficulties at the cognitive level but little about the other factors that can impact the individual’s performance. The aim of this research was thus to assess the effects of the socio-emotional context on the performance of adults with intellectual disabilities in a cognitive task. The main hypothesis was that people with intellectual disabilities will not have the cognitive ability to see the socioemotional environment as a potential resource, and that they could not use it to mobilize their cognitive resources to try and improve their performance and adopt more positive behavior.

A total of 32 people with moderate to severe intellectual disabilities were recruited. They performed a categorization task and were then given their results. Throughout the test, the psychologist observed the participants’ behavior and, more specifically, their emotional expressions, their pro-social behavior and their respect for social rules.

The results support the hypotheses, with better performance among participants who adopted pro-social behaviors, respected the rules and displayed positive emotional expressions. These results highlight the central role played by others in the ability of adults with intellectual disabilities to adapt to a given situation.

This study was conducted by a psychologist, which could have biased the relationship with the participants. A complementary study is in progress to measure the effects.

These findings have implications for cognitive remediation tasks aimed at mobilizing the cognitive resources of adults with intellectual disabilities.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the only study to evaluate the role of the socio-emotional environment on the performance of adults with intellectual disabilities.