Rights For Persons With Disability

After experiencing a spinal cord Injury (SCI) the person not only has to deal with regaining body functions and learn strategies to adapt to activity limitations, the person is often confronted with physical and social accessibility issues as well as loss of income or questions of cost coverage for medical/rehabilitative interventions. As a person with disability, being aware of his or her rights and how to navigate through the legal and social security systems could help optimise the person’s community reintegration after SCI.

As an enthusiastic freestyle snowboarder 18 year old Ben regularly participated in international competitions. It was during an European championship that he incurred a spinal cord injury (SCI) as a result of a snowboard accident.

Focused on discharge planning and community reintegration Ben’s new Rehab-Cycle® started off with a comprehensive assessment of his functioning that included a battery of discipline-specific testing and evaluation and a face-to-face interview with Ben.

In setting rehabilitation goals and identifying specific targets to address with interventions during Ben’s new Rehab-Cycle®, Ben and his rehabilitation team considered the comprehensive assessment results as well as the questions that came up during the assessment regarding discharge planning and community reintegration.

After the short and long-term goals were set and the intervention targets were defined, individual members of the rehabilitation team were assigned to each of the intervention targets. At this point, the intervention phase of Ben’s new Rehab-Cycle® began.

Approximately one month after Ben’s Rehab-Cycle® started and shortly before his discharge, a final evaluation of his functioning was undertaken.

This case of Ben shows the importance of being aware of the legal (and insurance/social services) framework and corresponding regulations that could influence rehabilitation planning and interventions and planning of community reintegration.

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