Specialists refer to rehabilitation as the process of restoring health and working ability that were disrupted by illness, trauma, physical or social factors. Its goal is the quick and effective return of the patient to society, to labor and domestic duties.
The concept of "rehabilitation"
The types of rehabilitation are diverse. This is both medical and professional, there are also labor or social, but they have one thing in common - they all restore. The World Health Organization has given an appropriate definition of this term.
WHO calls rehabilitation the totality of measures that should provide a person with a disability as a result of illness or injury of certain functions, the restoration of abilities or the maximum adaptation to new conditions in the society in which he lives. These are actions aimed at comprehensive assistance to a sick person or person with a disability in order to achieve their maximum possible usefulness, including social or economic. Thus, the rehabilitation process should be considered as a complex socio-medical problem, which experts divide into several aspects: medical, physical, psychological, professional or labor, and, finally, socio-economic.
General approaches
Each person in a certain period of time may need professional help so that he can return to his former way of life. The multifaceted and rather lengthy work to restore the patient’s health and its reintegration into labor and social life is rehabilitation. Specialists consider types of rehabilitation in interconnection and unity. Each of them corresponds to its type of consequences. For example, the biomedical consequences of the disease are deviations from the morphofunctional normal status, reduced ability to work makes the patient refuse to work, social rehabilitation or maladaptation is necessary for violations of relations with the family and society.
Recovery of the patient after the illness and only its physical recovery cannot be considered a complete solution to the problem. This is not rehabilitation: types of rehabilitation should affect a person in the aggregate, because after the patient has fully recovered, he needs to become able to work, regain his social status, etc. That is, a person must completely return to the previous full life, both in the family or team, and in society.
Recovery Methods
In the medical field, there are many types of rehabilitation - physical, medical, reconstructive surgery, restoration using some medical and technical means, diet therapy, etc. Depending on the disease or injury received, different methods are used. Recovery of physical form can be achieved with the help of kinesio and physiotherapy, physiotherapy exercises.
In cases where the patient really wants to help himself, and therefore takes an active part in all processes, according to experts, the most effective rehabilitation occurs.
Types of psychological rehabilitation - the help of a psychologist or narcologist - are necessary for patients who have no desire to recover. It can be alcoholics, drug addicts or drug addicts - those who are addicted and completely suppressed.
Means of medical rehabilitation
Methods of medical recovery can be divided into three subspecies: active, which includes all methods of kinesitherapy, including physical exercises with elements of sports, walking, running, training on simulators, occupational therapy, etc., as well as passive, i.e. pharmaco-, physiio-, phyto-, complementary therapy, homeopathy. The third method is psycho-regulatory, which implies aesthetic and phonotherapy, autogenic training, muscle relaxation, etc.
For a long time, medical rehabilitation systems have been considered as the only or main directions. They related mainly to the desire of doctors to cure the disease to restore impaired functions. However, this, as already proven, was not enough. Therefore, the question was raised in the first place to determine the subject of rehabilitation. The biological concept of the onset of disability, which was based only on the anatomical and physiological disorders in humans, has been replaced by a theory based on, among other things, an imbalance in the patient’s interaction with the outside world.
Studies have shown that there are more opportunities to recover a patient after an injury or illness when exposed to his environment. That is how the concept of “social rehabilitation” arose.
Stages of Medical Recovery
The first stage is to help the patient during the acute course of the disease or after an injury. This stage takes place in intensive care units, in more severe cases - in intensive care, in a word, where there are conditions for rehabilitation and first aid - in medical organizations specializing in the profile of this disease.
The second stage is called by the specialists the support of the patient during the early healing process after the course of the disease or injury, as well as during the residual effects of the disease in stationary conditions of various medical organizations. It can be a rehabilitation center, departments in sanatoriums, etc.
And, finally, the third stage of medical recovery is assistance during the period of residual events, as well as in the chronic course of the disease without exacerbation. At this stage, it is carried out in the physiotherapy room, with the help of physiotherapy or reflexology. Manual therapy, medical psychology, etc. help a lot.
One of the key in any rehabilitation is precisely physiotherapeutic methods. They are aimed at the complete restoration of lost functions in the patient and help accelerate reparative processes in the organs and tissues of the body, primarily the musculoskeletal system, nervous and circulatory systems.
During the physiotherapeutic method of recovery, medications are not used, and therefore the risk of an allergic reaction or side effects, including drug dependence, is excluded. The rehabilitation program specially selected for the patient helps him recover as quickly and efficiently as possible after a surgery or trauma, returns a feeling of freedom of movement and the ability to communicate with people around him without any restrictions.
Stroke Recovery
This ailment, leading to acute disturbance of cerebral circulation and damage to brain tissue, is quite common today. After it can come complete immobility, a decrease in strength, for example, hemiparesis, speech impairment, a noticeable decrease in sensitivity. Rehabilitation after a stroke involves the use of methods that restore all disorders at the same time.
To return damaged organs to a normal state, a number of measures should be taken. Moreover, they need to start from the first days, unless, of course, the general condition of the patient allows. Rehabilitation after a stroke should begin in the hospital - in the neurological department, and then continue in the sanatorium. The prognosis for the restoration of all functions is determined by the size and location of the affected areas of the brain. Of no less importance is the fact with which accuracy and completeness individual rehabilitation is carried out.
Drug Clinic or Recovery Center
Any addiction - whether alcoholic or narcotic - is a disease. A person who systematically uses psychoactive substances is socially dangerous. Moreover, as a result of alcohol or drug abuse, an individual forms a persistent mental and physical dependence. As a result, such a person immediately destroys four spheres in life. First of all, it loses health as a result of a constant hangover, withdrawal, the risk of acquiring HIV infection, hepatitis increases, cardiovascular diseases may appear, etc. The psychological state worsens - aggression, irritability, isolation appear, social relationships are broken and completely spiritual principles are changing.
Of course, many of them are placed close to drug treatment clinics. However, patients, having taken a course of treatment for a week, return home and in 99.9% of cases after some time they begin to lead their previous lifestyle - they again use alcohol or drugs.
According to experts, in order to cure such a dependence, a person first of all needs to be “torn out” of the society around him, restricting him in free movement and isolating him from the usual circle of friends. The second, no less important measure is this abstinence. But for this it is necessary to work with this social group, otherwise simply abstinence in most cases develops into longer and more rapid consumption. And here a rehabilitation center helps a person.
Today, there are a lot of such organizations in our country. Many of them have their own individual work program. The twelve-step rehabilitation program has gained great popularity. Which rehabilitation center to choose - spiritual, social, labor - is decided not only by the patient himself, but also by his relatives.
About social rehabilitation
This concept is a process of restoring in a society the status of a person lost by him as a result of problems or difficult life situations. These include the onset of disability, migration, imprisonment, unemployment, etc.
Social rehabilitation is a set of measures for closer interaction between the individual and society. On the one hand, it includes a method of transmitting social experience to individuals and a way of incorporating it into the system of relations, and on the other hand, personal changes.
Types of Social Rehabilitation
Depending on the types of problems, today, several basic types of recovery are applied at once. First of all, it is social and medical rehabilitation. It represents the formation of the patient's new skills for a full life, as well as assistance in organizing everyday life and housekeeping. In addition, in some cases, a person is prescribed rehabilitation and reconstructive therapy, which is carried out by the center for social rehabilitation.
The second type is the return of mental or psychological health to the patient, the optimization of his intra-group relationships and connections, as well as the identification of potential opportunities for the person to organize assistance and psychological correction.
The next method is socio-pedagogical. It involves the organization and implementation of professional assistance in case of impaired individual's ability to receive education. To do this, some work is being done to create adequate conditions, as well as forms and methods of training in accordance with relevant techniques and programs.
Other types - professional, labor and socio-environmental rehabilitation - are aimed at the formation in a person of his lost work and professional qualities and skills with further employment, as well as the restoration of social significance within the appropriate environment.
Recovery activities for children
According to statistics provided by WHO, more than six hundred and a half million inhabitants of the planet suffer from serious illnesses, a third of which are children. The numbers, which are already very depressing, are growing every year. Children born with disabilities or having a disability already in the first year of life reach their full potential only with the help of rehabilitation services and centers. Restoring the health of this category of residents in our country includes all types of services that are provided to both infants and adolescents. The term “rehabilitation of children” today means the whole range of services to ensure the social participation of the child.
Rehabilitation goal for children
It consists not only in the return of the child’s health, but also in the development of his mental and physical functions to the optimum level. The place where children are rehabilitated is all health care or education organizations, as well as the family, which ensures the restoration of their health at this stage of life. Medical rehabilitation of the child is carried out in several institutions. The most important and very first is the maternity hospital. In addition, a polyclinic, an outpatient clinic and consultations, as well as a hospital, play an important role in the development of children. In the more mature age of the child, rehabilitation institutions such as specialized dispensaries, motels, health camps, and a boarding school take them.
Stages of the children's recovery process
State programs aimed at restoring the health of sick children include three stages - clinical, sanatorium and adaptation.
The first stage - stationary - provides not only the restoration of the functions of the affected systems, but also the preparation of the child's body for the subsequent rehabilitation period. To solve the tasks at this stage of recovery, all rehabilitation methods are used - the possibilities of pharmacology, as well as diet, physiotherapy, massage, physiotherapy exercises. The process at the first stage is evaluated by biochemical and functional indicators, ECG results.
A sanatorium recovery period is critical. During it, the functions of the affected system are normalized. Special attention is paid to the physical and mental state of the child in accordance with his individual characteristics.
The third stage is adaptive. Its purpose is to normalize functional indicators to return the child to normal life. The content of rehabilitation procedures at this stage is determined not only by the state of health of the baby, but also by the degree of its functional adaptation. The third period ends with the full recovery of children.