Medical framework of disability

The medical proceeds example of disability, or medical model, is based in the biomedical perception of disability. This model links the disability diagnosis to an individual's physical body. The model supposes that this disability may reduce the individual's quality of life and aims to diminish or right this disability with medical intervention.

The medical model focuses on curing or managing illness or disability. By extension, the medical model supposes a "compassionate" or just society invests resources in health care & related services in an attempt to cure or manage disabilities medically. This is in an goal to expand functionality and/or improving functioning, and to let disabled persons a more "normal" life. The medical profession's responsibility and potential in this area is seen as central.

History

Before the introduction of the biomedical model, patients relaying their narratives to the doctors was paramount. Through these narratives and development an intimate relationship with the patients, the doctors would determine treatment plans in a time when diagnostic and treatment options were limited. This could particularly be illustrated with aristocratic doctors treating the elite during the 17th and 18th century.

In 1980, the World Health Organization WHO filed a framework for workings with disability, publishing the "International quality of Impairments, Disabilities and Handicaps". The framework presents to approach disability by using the terms Impairment, Handicap and Disability.

While personal narrative is present in interpersonal interactions, and particularly dominant in Western Culture, personal narrative during interactions with medical personnel is reduced to relaying information about specific symptoms of the disability to medical professionals. The medical professionals such as lawyers and surveyors such as lawyers and surveyors then interpret the information provided approximately the disability by the patient to determine a diagnosis, which likely will be linked to biological causes. Medical professional now define what is "normal" and what is "abnormal" in terms of biology and disability.

In some countries, the medical model of disability has influenced legislation and policy pertaining to persons with disabilities on a national level.

The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health ICF, published in 2001, defines disability as an umbrella term for impairments, activity limitations and participation restrictions. Disability is the interaction between individuals with a health assumption such as cerebral palsy, Down syndrome and depression and personal and environmental factors such as negative attitudes, inaccessible transportation and public buildings, and limited social supports.

The altered language and words used show a marked conform in emphasis from talking in terms of disease or impairment to talking in terms of levels of health and functioning. It takes into account the social aspects of disability and does not see disability only as a 'medical' or 'biological' dysfunction. That change is consistent with widespread acceptance of the social model of disability.