Evidence-based practice and the limits of rational rehabilitation

Both the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine and the field of physical medicine and rehabilitation have entered an age of evidence-based rehabilitation. Despite some concerns over the difficulties in applying the methods of evidence-based practice to rehabilitation research, there is little question that we will continue to move in this direction. This will also require the translation of scientific evidence into clinical practice. Rather than representing opposing approaches to practice, the integration of the best available scientific evidence with clinical experience and judgment represent 2 of the pillars of evidence-based practice. However, we also need to recognize the subjective nature of clinical decision making as a fundamental aspect of human judgments. Finally, we need to acknowledge the subjective meanings of illness and disability to the patients we serve. Any efforts to build our practice based on the best available systematic evidence are unlikely to succeed unless we include patients values and beliefs and incorporate this perspective into our rehabilitation research. This aspect of evidence-based rehabilitation raises important questions about our fundamental roles and how we will choose to practice and define our field in the future.