A 24-Year-Old Male Adult With a Severe Intellectual Developmental Disorder and Intractable Challenging Behaviors: A Case Report.

Abstract

Background: This case highlights the clinical complexity of caring for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and severe intellectual developmental disorder (IDD), particularly in the context of prolonged mechanical restraint, psychotropic polypharmacy, and life-threatening somatic complications. It illustrates how a multidisciplinary and individualized neurobehavioral approach can lead to major clinical improvement despite an initially poor prognosis and limitations regarding intensive care.

Case presentation: Nathan is a 24-year-old man of Slavic origin with ASD and severe IDD who had been subjected to continuous mechanical restraint for 2 years and was receiving five concomitant antipsychotic medications. He presented with severe behavioral dysregulation in a context of chronic anxiety, marked communication limitations, recurrent aspiration pneumonia related to gastrostomy feeding, and adverse effects associated with antipsychotic treatment. He was referred to a specialized neurobehavioral unit, where a multidisciplinary team-including psychiatry, intensive care, palliative care, and ethics specialists-agreed on a conservative management plan. Antipsychotic treatment was streamlined to clozapine, fluoxetine was later introduced, and care combined nutritional rehabilitation, communication-focused support, and individualized psychoeducational, occupational, and psychomotor interventions in a highly structured environment. Oral feeding was gradually reintroduced, ultimately allowing gastrostomy removal, and restrictive measures were progressively discontinued. Overtime, his behavioral symptoms, emotional regulation, physical health, mobility, and overall quality of life improved markedly.

Conclusions: This case underscores the importance of integrated multidisciplinary care in complex ASD/IDD presentations involving severe behavioral and somatic complications. Psychopharmacological simplification, environmental and communication adaptations, and individualized rehabilitation strategies were central to the improvement in both somatic outcomes and behavioral functioning. It also highlights the need to recognize prolonged mechanical restraint as a harmful and unsustainable management strategy in individuals with severe neurodevelopmental disorders.