Disability and rehabilitation services in India: Issues and challenges

Abstract

Disability is an important public health problem especially in developing countries like India. The problem will increase in future because of increase in trend of non-communicable diseases and change in age structure with an increase in life expectancy. The issues are different in developed and developing countries, and rehabilitation measures should be targeted according the needs of the disabled with community participation. In India, a majority of the disabled resides in rural areas where accessibility, availability, and utilization of rehabilitation services and its cost-effectiveness are the major issues to be considered. Research on disability burden, appropriate intervention strategies and their implementation to the present context in India is a big challenge. Recent data was collected from Medline and various other sources and analyzed. The paper discusses various issues and challenges related to disability and rehabilitation services in India and emphasize to strengthen health care and service delivery to disabled in the community.

Access to Services and Barriers faced by People with Disabilities: A Quantitative Survey

“…In order to achieve universal healthcare in India, and also achieve SDG 3 (good health and wellbeing for all) (UNDP, 2015), it is imperative to address these barriers to healthcare access for those with disabilities. Maximising health will also involve addressing the significant unmet need for rehabilitation services (18%) and assistive devices (18.8%) as reported here and in the literature (World Bank, 2009;Kumar et al, 2012).…”

“…Interestingly, the only barriers with no statistically significant difference between people with and without disabilities were family assistance and family attitudes. This is interesting in the south Asian context where, in the absence of significant government support, the family network often plays an important role in care (Worthington and Gogne, 2011;Kumar et al, 2012). In India, the family plays an important role in increasing access to services, healthcare, work and education.…”

“…The UNCRPD (UN General Assembly, 2007) requires employers to make reasonable accommodation to make workplaces accessible. However, absence of accommodation for the needs of persons with disability (15.8%), negative attitudes from employers (16.9%) and physical inaccessibility of the workplace remain significant barriers to work in this study and in India as a whole (Ministry of Statistics, 2011;World Health Organization and World Bank, 2011;Kumar et al, 2012;Novotny et al, 2013).…”

A study of profile of patients attending district disability rehabilitation centre at Ballari city

“…Some studies have shown proportionately more disability among males, while some other studies more among females. 2,12 Currently India is witnessing an epidemiological transition which is largely driven by population ageing where there is steep rise in the burden of noncommunicable diseases which may result in doubling of deaths due to non-communicable diseases from about 4.5 million in 1998 to about 8 million a year in 2020 13 . In the current study the commonest cause of disability among the patients attending DDRC were chronic conditions (33.2%) like diabetes, cerebral palsy, and stroke etc., followed by infections (28%) like Measles, Polio, chronic suppurative otitis media and injuries (27.3%).…”

Community-Based Rehabilitation for Children with Intellectual Disability: A Case Study of Endosulfan Affected Areas in India

“…The poor conditions related to accessibility, availability and utilization of the public rehabilitation services and resources accentuate the vulnerability of persons with intellectual disability in India (Jenkins and Davis, 2006;Kumar, Roy and Shekhar, 2012). In such a scenario, the Community Based Rehabilitation Model (CBR), is widely accepted as an effective and inclusive model of rehabilitation services in low and middle income countries.…”