Posts in this category concern some aspect of models of illness, and frameworks used with rehabilitation. The biopsychosocial model and the biomedical model will be predominant, but other related models may be included.
“Rehabilitation is a way of thinking, not a way of doing.” I have written two editorials extolling this approach, but I have recently realised that I have not explained the specific “way of thinking”. This omission struck me as I was writing some new pages for the site (not yet published) on training in rehabilitation …
In 2007 Peter Halligan and I asked, “Is it time to rehabilitate convalescence?”. No one answered until, in 2022, Gavin Francis also challenged healthcare practice in his book, “Recovery, the lost art of convalescence.” He argues that “from time to time, we all need to learn the art of convalescence”. The medical literature, however, publishes …
In 1980 I started a three-year project, a large (n = 700+) controlled clinical trial investigating whether a community stroke rehabilitation team would reduce the use of hospital resources. My results found no effect. Twenty years later, I was still interested in community rehabilitation and, with Pam Enderby, published the results of a survey she …
Is frailty a helpful concept within the rehabilitation context? I asked myself this question after seeing a recent paper on people with multiple sclerosis that concluded that there was “a significant relationship between frailty and history of falls in multiple sclerosis, independent of age, sex, and disease severity.” Frailty is widely used but without a …
What is a person’s ‘Rehabilitation Potential’? Often this question is asked by one clinician of another about a patient. Still, there is a second interpretation, “What do we mean by Rehabilitation Potential when we ask that question?” I will discuss these questions, but before doing so, I will consider two further crucial questions, “Can we, …
These are dangerous and difficult words used in many powerful ways: if considered disabled, you get disability benefits; if you are considered sick, you may get sickness benefits. A disease may make you eligible for a critical illness policy payout. Labels incorporating any of these words can significantly impact your life. Unfortunately, the interpretation of …
“Helping the Public Understand Adverse Events Associated With COVID-19 Vaccinations. Lessons Learned From Functional Neurological Disorder.” (here) Published today (9th April 2021), I think this viewpoint is brave; mentioning Covid-19 and functional disorders in the same title; challenging, because it suggests the bravery is warranted; and, to me, fascinating because it shows how the biomedical …
Today, 7th April 2021, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, otherwise known as NICE, published its guideline on diagnosis and management of chronic pain (NG193) – see here. News programmes emphasised its advice against using analgesic drugs. I frequently saw people with chronic pain and joined a local group interested in its management, …
Two incidents precipitated this blog. During discussion after a talk on an evidence-based definition of rehabilitation (e.g. as here), I was asked whether services provided by Social Services (and others) could also be considered as providing rehabilitation. My reply was that rehabilitation is a process and, as its intended outcomes relate to social participation, and …
This is a true incident. A friend of mine is helping out as a physiotherapist during this pandemic. Recently, in order to get a patient who had just been discharged from the hospital seen, she had to spend nearly three hours inputing three different sets of referral data, all covering the same basic information, into …
