Posts in this category are not easily categorised! They will cover any aspect of rehabilitation and a range of topics peripheral to rehabilitation, matters that should be discussed and considered but may not be – yet.
Two recent judgements from the Court of Protection have concerned the conflict between a person’s deep-held beliefs and what the clinical team judged to be in the person’s best interests. One case involved KT, a 53-year-old man in a prolonged disorder of consciousness where the clinical team considered it was no longer in his best …
The World Health Organisation’s International Classification of Impairment, Disability and Handicap, published in 1980, was an early interpretation of the biopsychosocial model of illness. It was soon criticised for overlooking the person and their environment. In the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health, published in 2000, the WHO introduced environmental and personal factors, which, …
A patient’s father recently asked me, “What is the usual rehabilitation curriculum for someone with problems like my son’s?”. Until then, I had only considered a rehabilitation curriculum in the context of educating and training healthcare professionals about rehabilitation. I had never thought of a patient’s rehabilitation curriculum. Although I have often said rehabilitation is …
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 mortality. It is also a person-centred phenomenon; only the person can judge whether they are lonely and how lonely they are. It is …
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. This will update guidance from 2013. We recently debated whether slow-stream rehabilitation was an appropriate term to use within the guidance. I argued …
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 has a right to reside in a hospital until specific criteria are met. The requirements are mainly physiological and do not consider the …
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 process and assessment as a measure (e.g. “the outcome assessment was the Rivermead Mobility Index”), and I have suggested that both should be …
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 tweet about his article. She has studied wisdom in general practitioners, but the findings apply to all healthcare professionals. Indeed, rehabilitation professionals should …
“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 skills. This …
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 …
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