Rehabilitation's Contribution to Industrial Health

Abstract

During the past few years there has been increasing interest in rehabilitation, but rarely do we find the various aspects fitted properly into the total picture. The glamorous, more dramatic, orthopedic conditions, the situations of which headlines and heart warming human interest stories are made, receive the major share of attention. The amputee, the paraplegic, these are synonymous with the problem of rehabilitation in the minds of many. The “unglamorous light work” placements, accomplished daily within industry to help an employee partially disabled by illness or injury do not reach the headlines, but they are undoubtedly of tremendous importance in the total problem of rehabilitation; probably far more so than the glamor cases. Fundamentally, rehabilitation means assisting an individual to return to as great a degree of social and economic self-sufficiency as he is able to achieve. Thus the worker who sustains a fractured wrist and is temporarily assigned work that he can do with his uninjured hand is part of today's rehabilitation effort. The employee who returns after eight weeks absence due to a coronary attack, is rehabilitated by permanent assignment to a less arduous job. These cases do not make the headlines. They are part of the daily, unobtrusive, but very important contribution that an effective in-plant medical program makes to the problem of rehabilitation. It is relatively unsung but it is a vitally significant part of the rehabilitation needs in this country.