Ramping Up Rehabilitation Research Urged as a “Public Health Imperative”

Abstract

CHICAGO—Three years ago, the journal Science featured a series of articles describing the wonders of bioengineering and bionics and the promise they hold for mending bodies broken by spinal cord injuries, stroke, and diseased joints and organs. But even as many of these wonders are being put to the test in clinical trials, clinicians and basic scientists in the field of disability rehabilitation are facing challenges that even the Six Million Dollar Man might find difficult to overcome. During the joint conference of the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine and the American Society of Neurorehabilitation here in late September, experts debated not only sophisticated techniques such as the use of cortical stimulation to aid stroke recovery but also some fundamental issues concerning current research capacity in rehabilitation medicine. Rory Cooper, PhD, professor and chair of rehabilitation science and technology in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh, in Pennsylvania, told his colleagues that the field currently lacks many of the resources needed to achieve the objectives described in Science’s February 8, 2002, issue on “The Bionic Human.” He said resources that are in short supply include federal funding, an ample pool of well-trained investigators, mentors for young investigators entering the field, and new tools to measure rehabilitation outcomes. “This is a public health imperative,” Cooper said, noting that in the next 25 years an estimated 20% of the US population will be aged 65 years or older. “Disability rehabilitation research is a quality of life issue, as well as a technology issue and a medical care issue.”