18 | Social Service Support In SCI Rehabilitation

For persons with spinal cord injury (SCI), there are issues beyond the physical disability, including financial and insurance issues, issues related to employment, and various other environmental factors, that often need to be addressed for rehabilitation and community reintegration to be successful. Social service support in rehabilitation is essential to help navigate through these issues.

Conrad, a 57-year old Swiss border guard, sustained a spinal cord injury (SCI) as a result of a surgical intervention performed to treat an abdominal aortic aneurysm.

To get an overall picture of Conrad's functioning, the Rehab-Cycle^® began with a comprehensive assessment that encompassed a series of discipline-specific testing and evaluations (health professional perspective), as well as a face-to-face interview with Conrad (patient perspective).

Having an overview of Conrad's functioning based on the rehabilitation team's assessment and Conrad's own statements about his situation facilitated the setting of mutual rehabilitation goals and identification of specific targets to address with interventions.

While the social worker was responsible primarily for addressing Conrad's global goal, the other members of Conrad's rehabilitation team provided interventions that targeted the service-program goal, the three cycle goals, and the respective intervention targets.

After four months of interventions, Conrad’s functioning was again assessed in order to evaluate whether changes had occurred and whether the goals Conrad and the rehabilitation team had set in the beginning of the Rehab-Cycle^® had been achieved.

For persons with spinal cord injury (SCI) participating in rehabilitation, social workers provide critical support for a range of socioeconomic issues that impact their return to the community .

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