[Burn rehabilitation and community reintegration-new challenge to burn surgery in China]

Burn patients often have severe disfigurement, dysfunction, and psychological disorder after discharge, which may last for a long time, even for a whole life. These problems may prevent patients from returning to normal life and re-entering society. Because of demographic and socioeconomic reasons, the number of burn patients in China is huge. The rising cure rate further increases the number of patients that need rehabilitation treatment. However, the level of burn rehabilitation in China is relatively low as compared with that in the developed countries. Along with the social and economical development, it is no longer satisfied to just save the life of patient. Improving the quality of wound healing, avoiding or decreasing disfigurement, dysfunction, and psychological disorder, and finally helping patients re-enter society is the ultimate goal of burn treatment. Modern concept of rehabilitation is to restore health or normal life for patients by medical, psychosocial, educational and occupational methods. Although increasing attention has been paid to burn rehabilitation in China recently, so far it is mainly focused on the fields of improving patients' appearance and body function, whereas the importance of psychosocial, educational, occupational, and social rehabilitation has still not been realized. Some fields of burn rehabilitation have not been well established and many are not carried out by professionals. The model of multidisciplinary team in burn centers of developed countries including surgeons and nurses, as well as allied professionals such as psychologists, physical and occupational therapists, dietitians, anesthesiologists and social workers has seldom been introduced into China. In most burn centers in China, psychological support is mainly given by nurses in their spare time of nursing. Burn treatment used to be divided into the early stage of life saving and wound repair, and the late stage of rehabilitation. It has not been realized until recent years that rehabilitation measurements should be carried out through the whole process of burn treatment. Organizations of burn survivors and summer camps for burnt children proved to be helpful for the patients' self-confidence and community integration have hardly been established in China. Lack of funding is one of the main reasons for the lagging behind in burn rehabilitation in China. According the experiences of other countries, raising money from donation through burn foundation may be a useful way to support burn rehabilitation. Solving the above problems and improving the burn rehabilitation will be a new challenge to burn surgery in China.