Social and cultural disincentives to independent living

More than 30 million Americans have some disability or chronic condition that prevents their full participation in social living, according to the Department of Health and Human Services, yet their rehabilitation as well as integration into the mainstream of American life has been slow. The causes of this paradox are to be found in the contradictory implications of certain American values, our overreliance on technologic solutions to personal and social problems, and our continuing reluctance to fully admit patient-consumers as partners in their own rehabilitation.