Abstract

The modern concept of rehabilitation is to understand the process of efficiency, through the medical, psychological and social development.

Social development, promotes a wide range of professional activities. A study was carried out to show the knowledge, opinions and assessment of physical therapists with regard to social rehabilitation.

The purpose of the survey was to present professional motivation, competence, ambition and experience in dealing with persons with the disabled, which allowed to recognize sense of the role of the physioterapist in the broader rehabilitation especially pointing out to social rehabilitation.

In the line of occupational aspirations the respondents indicated that the physiotherapy profession is not solely focused on medical problems (80%). According to the survey , up to 89% of respondents are aware that rehabilitation of the disabled doesn’t only comprise improving their physical aspects, but also their mental state or general well-being. It is only a part of the therapeutic process. As many as 43% of physiotherapists have the responsibility to help to integrate the disabled back into the general society.

In determining the meaning of „social rehabilitation”, the respondents understand the term in an extremely wide way. Three main schools of thought have emerged from the survey.

43% of respondents felt that social rehabilitation is to adapt a disabled person to social and public life, with the use of available assets, and to carry out social roles. In other words, some physiotherapists understand the process of social rehabilitation as a individual model of disability, where individuals have to adapt to the surrounding environment. 41% clearly understand of social rehabilitation as participation of society in solving problems of disabled people by creating opportunities and conditions to improve their standard of living. This group indicates the social model of disability, which stresses the social responsibility for the disabled to participate in public life. The third group of physiotherapists (40%) determine the trend of social rehabilitation as integration. Which means that this process includes people with disabilities into environment which would be manifested in intense contacts with the general public. Keeping in mind that respondents could freely determine the characteristics of social rehabilitation, the ranges of these three groups of responses interpenetrate which leads to the conclusion that physiotherapists perceive social rehabilitation in a variety of ways with a slight predominance of the individual model.

This confirms the opinion of physiotherapists, that individual factors condition to the rehabilitation, as well as willingness to undertake additional rehabilitation. In it is first case: the motivation, desire and aspirations, in the second: awareness and active life. However, external factors such as communication, architectural and financial conditions represent secondary determinants according to the surveyed respondents.

It must be concluded that the respondents are not only aware of the complexity of the rehabilitation process, which goes far beyond the medical aspect, but also see their role in the social rehabilitation. It is interesting to notice that respondents slightly prefer understanding the social rehabilitation in the spirit of the individual model of disability. It seems that it may be a transfer of physical characteristics of physiotherapists work involving medical adaptation of disabled people to high quality life.