Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
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S. Federici, M. J. Scherer, F. Meloni, F. Corradi,
M. Adya, D. Samant, M. Morris, and A. Stella
CONTENTS
1.1 The Universal Model of Disability .................................................................................... 11
1.2 Classification, Declaration, and International Definitions of Functioning and
Disability ............................................................................................................................... 13
1.3 Where Individual Functioning and Disability Are Assessed: Assistive and
Rehabilitation Technology Service Delivery Models ..................................................... 16
1.3.1 Charity-Based Models ............................................................................................. 17
1.3.2 Community-Based Rehabilitation Models ........................................................... 17
1.3.3 Individual Empowerment Models ........................................................................ 17
1.3.4 Entrepreneurial Models .......................................................................................... 17
1.3.5 Globalization Model ................................................................................................ 18
1.3.6 Universal Design Models........................................................................................ 18
1.4 Assessing Individual Functioning Within a Rehabilitation Process ........................... 18
1.5 Assessing Individual Functioning and Disability in the ATA Process ....................... 20
1.6 Conclusions ........................................................................................................................... 23
Summary of the Chapter .............................................................................................................. 23
References ....................................................................................................................................... 23
1.1 The Universal Model of Disability
The origins of the biopsychosocial model date back to the proposal put forward by psy-
chiatrist George Engel in 1977 to integrate within the medical model the dominant social
and psychological variables:
The dominant model of disease today is biomedical, and it leaves no room within its
framework for the social, psychological, and behavioural dimensions of illness. A bio-
psychosocial model is proposed that provides a blueprint for research, a framework for
teaching, and a design for action in the real world of health care. (1977, p. 130)
Engel made the leading theoretical contribution to building the biopsychosocial model,
identified in von Bertalanffy's general systems theory (von Bertalanffy 1950). According
to this approach, the unifying principles in the scientific context are not a reduction of
but the organization that explains a scientific phenomenon. It is not sufficient to divide a
scientific phenomenon into a simpler unit of analysis and study such units one by one, but
it is necessary to study the interrelations among these units. We contrast the old scientific
method, which refuses all forms of teleology and is based on linear causality and relations
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