Diagnosis in rehabilitation: woolly thinking and resource inequity

The diagnostic process in rehabilitation has traditionally been termed assessment. However the goals of assessment are no different to the goals of diagnosis in traditional medical practice. The purpose is, in both instances, to acquire sufficient information to understand the cause(s) of the presenting problem(s), to allow more-or-less specific intervention(s) to be undertaken and, where appropriate, to allow a prognosis to be given. The main difference is that in rehabilitation the presenting problems are limitations in activities and the main items investigated are impairment and contextual matters, whereas in medicine the presenting problems are symptoms, and the goals are the diagnosis and treatment of the underlying disease. Unfortunately it is commonly assumed that rehabilitation diagnosis is simple and unimportant. Consequently few resources are allocated by purchasers to the process of making a rehabilitation diagnosis, in comparison to the huge resources devoted to achieving disease diagnosis.