Recovery From Disability

The time is right for recovery from serious mental disorders. Mental health professionals and state and local mental health agencies are responding to a national call for action on recovery: from the President's Commission on Mental Health, the Surgeon General, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. But how can recovery from mental disorders become a reality? Recovery From Disability describes the principles and practices of psychiatric rehabilitation to bridge the gap between what is known and what actually can be used to achieve recovery for patients in real-life mental health programs. The book draws on Dr. Robert Paul Liberman's 40 years of designing, testing, and disseminating innovative treatments for persons with mental disabilities. Illuminating up-to-date treatment techniques that reflect a consensus of experts regarding evidence-based practices, Dr. Liberman shows how recovery can be the rule rather than the exception. This practical book addresses day-to-day realities faced by practitioners who must wrestle with the individualized needs and personal goals of each patient while drawing up a rehabilitation roadmap to recovery. Written in a down-to-earth manner with minimal jargon, this clinical manual is intended for everyday use. Brimming with clear advice and ideas for effective services, the book is relevant to the work of all mental health disciplines, administrators, consumer advocates, and clinicians with all levels of experience. Practice-based evidence is highlighted by an abundance of real-life examples and a host of graphic aids. The author addresses the particular needs of Latino patients and takes up the latest developments in rehabilitation, such as illness management, social and independent living skills training, neurocognitive pharmacology, cognitive remediation, and use of computers in rehabilitation. Each chapter contains information, techniques, and treatment methods that enable clinicians to: Help patients select realistic yet personally meaningful goals for enriching their lives Teach patients how to stabilize their symptoms and cognitive impairments Train patients in social and independent living skills for empowerment and autonomy Educate family members and other caregivers to collaborate with mental health professionals in overcoming their loved one's disability Provide access to vocational rehabilitation, including supported employment Facilitate comprehensiveness, continuity, and coordination of competency-based rehabilitation, using personal support specialists, assertive community treatment, and integrated mental health care Dr. Liberman also describes how to customize services that are effective for individuals with more than one disorder, whose disorder is refractory to customary pharmacological and psychosocial treatments, or whose adaptation to community life is marred by aggressive behavior. With its wealth of rich and immediately applicable treatment approaches, Recovery From Disability will help professionals equip mentally disabled patients to reach their personally relevant goals and progress on the road to recovery.

The most recent high-profile advocate for Americans with disabilities, actor Christopher Reeve, has highlighted for the public the economic and social costs of disability and the importance of rehabilitation. Enabling America is a major analysis of the field of rehabilitation science and engineering. The book explains how to achieve recognition for this evolving field of study, how to set priorities, and how to improve the organization and administration of the numerous federal research programs in this area. The committee introduces the "enabling-disability process" model, which enhances the concepts of disability and rehabilitation, and reviews what is known and what research priorities are emerging in the areas of: Pathology and impairment, including differences between children and adults. Functional limitationsâ€"in a person's ability to eat or walk, for example. Disability as the interaction between a person's pathologies, impairments, and functional limitations and the surrounding physical and social environments. This landmark volume will be of special interest to anyone involved in rehabilitation science and engineering: federal policymakers, rehabilitation practitioners and administrators, researchers, and advocates for persons with disabilities.

Painâ€"it is the most common complaint presented to physicians. Yet pain is subjectiveâ€"it cannot be measured directly and is difficult to validate. Evaluating claims based on pain poses major problems for the Social Security Administration (SSA) and other disability insurers. This volume covers the epidemiology and physiology of pain; psychosocial contributions to pain and illness behavior; promising ways of assessing and measuring chronic pain and dysfunction; clinical aspects of prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation; and how the SSA's benefit structure and administrative procedures may affect pain complaints.

Volume numbers determined from Scope of the guidelines, p. 12-13.

It explores issues that are central to rehabilitation, such as the nature of the body, the idea of independence, the rehabilitation process, evidence-based practice and client-centred practice. Seeking always to ground theoretical ideas in the realities of every-day rehabilitation practice, and drawing from a wealth of research evidence, the book continually examines the implications of these perspectives for the education, practice, service delivery, research and theoretical development of the rehabilitation professions. Provides an accessible introduction to current theoretical perspectives on disability Demonstrates how these theoretical perspectives can inform a practitioner's approach to rehabilitation Relevant for all the rehabilitation and health care professions

I needed proof that God existed. I received this proof from the swing of a baseball bat.While walking home from work on November 10, 1996 I was assaulted. That initial blow resulted in a severe head injury, and when I awoke from a fifteen day coma, I was in essence a newborn. My Invisible Disability is the recollection I have of rehabilitation from head injury and the struggles I endured to gain back all that I lost. The book is based on journals I wrote during recovery so it reveals the power of the human mind, therefore body and spirit. Going through this adversity and surviving the way I did is the proof I needed that God does exist, and had His hand in my healing. It took suffering from My Invisible Disability to realize He is there, and always was, and always will be.

Although there is broad agreement on the importance of rehabilitation and the need to improve occupational health and vocational rehabilitation in the UK, there is considerable uncertainty about what 'rehabilitation' is, and about its cost-effectiveness, particularly for the common health problems that cause most long-term disability and incapacity. This paper seeks to develop a theoretical and conceptual basis for the rehabilitation of common health problems. Chapters include: traditional rehabilitation and the need for a different approach; illness, disability and incapacity for work; the biopsychosocial model and framework of disability; obstacles to recovery and return to work; clinical and occupational management of common health problems; personal responsibility and motivation; and rehabilitation in a social security context.