ICF and neurorehabilitation.

Abstract

On May 2001, the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) was presented by the World Health Organisation (WHO). The ICF has been developed from the International Classification of Impairments, Disabilities, and Handicaps (ICIDH), which was first published in 1980. Twenty years later, after systematic field trials and international consultation, ICF was endorsed by the 54th World Health Assembly for international use [1]. ICF provides a unified and standard language and serves as a framework for the description of health and health-related states (i.e., disability). It is a complement to the ICD-10 (International Classification of Diseases), where health conditions (diseases, disorders, injuries, etc.) are classified. ICF defines components of health and health-related components of well-being. It is described from the perspective of the body, the individual and society in different components: Body Functions and Structures; Activity and Participation; Environmental Factors and Personal Factors (Fig. 1). ICF systematically groups different domains for a person in a given health condition. Functioning is an umbrella term encompassing positive aspects of Body Functions and Structures, Activity and Participation; similarly, disability serves as an umbrella term for negative aspects, i.e., Impairments, Activity limitations and Participation restrictions (Table 1). ICF also lists environmental factors that interact with all these constructs. In this way, ICF enables the user to record useful pro-