[Handicapped patients in a changing world and rehabilitation concerns]

Rehabilitation medicine is considered one of the most important coordinating disciplines of modern medical intervention. It is the answer to the omissions of medicine in the past in that it turns explicitly toward the consequences of diseases for the quality of life. The social and philosophical movements which have strongly influenced the development of comprehensive medicine are globally outlined. These movements, along with demographic changes, are viewed as the main contributive factors for the development of rehabilitation medicine as a methodologic practical mode of medical intervention, directed at the consequences of disease and trauma as expressed in the terms of impairment, disability, and handicap. The methodology of rehabilitation is outlined, with the rehabilitation medical diagnosis viewed as the indispensable prerequisite and basis for rehabilitation programming in cooperation with the disabled person himself.