From the [Nashville] Tennessean, a profile of Mary Perry, who is believed to be one of the oldest living peple with Down syndrome. Ms. Perry, 73, has outlived all but one of her eight brothers and sisters.

“She beat the odds,” said Dr. Karen Summar, a developmental pediatrician at Vanderbilt children’s hospital. “It’s incredible.”

The 2007 Guinness Book of World Records lists the oldest living woman with Down syndrome as Nancy Siddoway, of Utah, who was born on Aug. 18, 1937, and the oldest living man with Down syndrome as Keith Roberts, who was born in South Africa on June 6, 1953. Perry was born on June 9, 1934.

Ms. Perry’s long lifespan is a testament to changes in health care, living conditions and expectations for people with Down syndrome over the past few decades.

Many people with Down syndrome have other medical conditions, including heart and respiratory problems. When Ms. Perry was born, effective treatment for these conditions either didn’t exist or wasn’t offered to people who were viewed as a burden on society. Large numbers of people with Down syndrome were hidden away in institutions, where care was often minimal to nonexistent. As a consequence of this broad-based neglect, their expected average lifespan in the U.S. was only about 9 years in the 1930s.

Ms. Perry, by contrast, was raised on a family farm and treated with the same care and love that her siblings received.  Similarly, people with Down syndrome today are out in their communities, getting adequate health care and nutrition and living longer than ever before. Today, their average lifespan is 55 and climbing.

Summar said the increasing life span has huge policy implications.

“There are going to be more and more people with Down syndrome living to this ripe old age,” she said. “They will outlive their parents. Who will take care of them when their parents pass on? We’ve got to be thinking of what’s ahead.”

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