Abstract
The syndrome of Down or trissomia of chromosome 21 is a genetic condition, recognized for more than a century by John Langdon Down and constitutes one of the causes most frequent of mental retardation. The present study had an objective to evaluate the quality of life of carriers of Down syndrome and is taken care of by the APAE of Glad Landing. The study was done with 20 children, being nine of masculine sex and 11 of the feminine sex, with ages between three to 17 years. For attainment of data the Brazilian version of the Questionnaire of Quality of Life SF-36 was used, that contemplates 36 included items in eight sections: functional capacity, physical aspects, pain, general state of health, social vitality, aspects, emotional aspects and mental health. In the analyzed patients one observed that some sections had presented, on average, greater values in the feminine group to that of the masculine group, however these differences had not been evident in statistical (p>0,05). One high linear correlation between social aspects and mental health was evident, pointing to how much bigger the quality of related life the social aspects, better the quality of life related to the mental health. It was observed that the children with Down Syndrome had presented good quality of life and that its physical and intellectual limitations can be modified by means of the competent handling and precocious stimulation and that to have a good quality of life does not depend only on the individual, but is the result of the interactions with the people who live in its environment.