Landmine injuries and rehabilitation for landmine survivors

There is a tremendous international need for the development of rehabilitation educational programs, especially in low-income countries. These programs are most urgently needed in those countries where there is active conflict, where there has been recent civil war, and where significant casualties have been created because of landmines and weapons-fire. Most of these countries are developing nations where rehabilitation is a lower priority than the provision of basic health needs. These countries generally have few financial, personnel, and system resources to provide much rehabilitation for their disabled citizens. Also, they generally have few, if any, physicians trained in the principles and practice of rehabilitation medicine. These countries can benefit from the use of psychiatric consultants to help assess their rehabilitation needs in designing relevant educational curricula for health professionals and in developing rehabilitation teams. These teams can then develop systems of care for the most common disabling conditions in that area of the world. Western technology, however, cannot be imposed on these countries. Any rehabilitation systems of care must be established within the context of the particular culture and governmental health system organization, if it is to be useful and succeed in a particular nation.