Welcome to Rehabilitation Matters,
the site for everyone interested in rehabilitation.
This site is unashamedly evangelical about rehabilitation, its importance to patients and their families, its never-ending fascination, and its intellectual and emotional challenges. It is a personal website, expressing a personal view of rehabilitation. The view is based on over 40 years of experience, research, writing and, most of all, thinking. It is, I hope, based on evidence; it is, I hope, not afraid to challenge orthodox beliefs where they need challenging; and it is, I hope, informative.
Derick Wade. For more, see About and Purpose.
This site covers any topic relevant to rehabilitation from any perspective – patient, friend or relative, professional, purchaser, researcher, or someone who is just interested.
At present, in March 2023, it covers what rehabilitation is, training and education, the patient’s viewpoint, rehabilitation in the UK, and a blog which covers everything else! I am currently reviewing and updating all content and presentation.
March 15th 2023
I have added two new competencies to the syllabus: C7-obtaining funding, which concerns applying for additional resources, and C-8, (making) best interests decisions, which concerns embedding the Mental Capacity Act 2005 into your daily practice. Many MindMaps to help. I have updated my blog post on the Mental Capacity Act. I have just replaced a post from January 2021 with a new one on loneliness. Since March 3rd, I have updated the UKROC page to include a six-year report link.
As the strapline says, this site is all about rehabilitation and about all rehabilitation. I do not know of other sites centred on rehabilitation itself. Academic journals such as Clinical Rehabilitation (which I edited) and Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation publish short articles about specific topics. Sites such as the British Society of Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine or the Society for Research in Rehabilitation have a particular focus (medical aspects or research). Textbooks such as the Oxford Handbook of Rehabilitation Medicine rarely discuss rehabilitation in detail, mainly having chapters on topics.
This site is for everyone curious about or interested in rehabilitation, from experts to people knowing nothing, from rehabilitation professionals through other healthcare workers to politicians, patients, and the public, from those who pay to those who provide. This site is interested in all types of healthcare rehabilitation regardless of age, setting, or condition. It will touch on all aspects.
The content will inevitably reflect my philosophy and approach. I have recently written about this. I believe rehabilitation must be centred on the person, always consider longer-term social goals, and that rehabilitation professionals need to develop wisdom, which is the best way to respond to the many uncertainties and complexities associated with many of our patients. We must remain humane and remember that patients are people, just like us.
I also consider important philosophical aspects of rehabilitation, such as the distinctions between disease, disability, sickness, and illness or, of equal importance, what is rehabilitation. I will refer to a book I have just bought, The Routledge Companion to the Philosophy of Medicine.
This website’s goal is to improve rehabilitation generally, and particularly in the UK. I cannot know what you were looking for or would like to see. Please use the feedback button in the footer to contact me suggesting new areas that might be of interest and commenting on what you read. I intend to reply to all comments and feedback and to change or add material where possible. I am specially interested in receiving contributions suggestion what you, the reader, offer to the rehabilitation as a professional, patient, family member or person. There is a category of blog post, “What do we add”. Any contribution is welcome and will acknowledge the author(s).
Rehabilitation services should pay attention to loneliness. It is common, associated with many long-term conditions in rehabilitation, including chronic pain, more common in people with disabilities, and associated with increased morbidity and
In 1978, I submitted my first paper to the British Medical Journal. It concerned what we now refer to as functional disorders, the phenomenon of illness with no identified disease causing it.
What is slow-stream rehabilitation? Dr John Burn is leading a group in writing guidance and standards for nursing homes (care home, skilled nursing facilities) that undertake rehabilitation for some or all residents.
Hospitals are a part of the healthcare system, but is rehabilitation healthcare? The UK Department of Health, responsible for all healthcare and not just hospitals, promotes the idea that a patient only
At 02.00 hrs on November 29th, I had an epiphany, “a moment of sudden and great revelation or realisation”. [OED] For many years, I have emphasised a distinction between assessment as a
In May 2021, Dr Sabena Yasmin Jameel published her University of Birmingham PhD thesis on Enacting Phronesis in General Practitioners. John Launer wrote about it on November 2nd, and I saw a
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