Markus Kosel, Privat-docent at UNIGE, is a psychiatrist specialised in neurodevelopmental disorders. After completing his medical studies at the University of Lausanne, he obtained an MD-PhD in 2000. He joined the Geneva University Hospitals (GUH)in 2007 and was appointed head of  the psychiatric unit dedicated to adults with ASD and intellectual disabilities of the GUH His involvement as a lecturer at UNIGE since 2020 testifies to his fascination with neurodevelopmental disorder and complex human behaviours.

With initial expertise in pharmacopsychiatry and the treatment of resistant depression, he later turned his attention to autism spectrum disorders and disorders of intellectual development. As head of the psychiatric unit dedicated to adults affected by these disorders, he is confronted daily with the challenges of impaired mental health for the patients concerned, their caregivers and healthcare professionals. One of his main current interests is to focus on behaviours that defy the norm, with a view to better understanding their origins and improving treatment.

•  Page on the website of the Faculty of medicine

Improving Prescriptions for Intellectual Disabilities

Adults with intellectual disabilities who require medical care are often misdiagnosed or underdiagnosed, and therefore inadequately treated. To counter this, Markus Kosel and his colleagues have developed a tool called TOP-ID to optimise the treatment of intellectual disabilities. It represents one of the first comprehensive approaches to assessing adults with intellectual disabilities and improving drug treatments. TOP-ID focuses on four common and difficult clinical situations, particularly in patients with severely impaired communication skills. TOP-ID was developed using a Delphi process involving iterative questioning of 18 international experts. The process assesses pain, gastrointestinal and sleep disorders, as well as problem behaviours in the context of verbal and non-verbal attention disorders. A digitised version of TOP-ID has been developed for bedside use, including a systematic re-prescribing guide.