[Social rehabilitation and earning capacity]

Social rehabilitation, if contrasted with medical and vocational rehabilitation, has hitherto remained a residual category. Vocational resettlement, in conjunction with medical outcome, being the central criterion of successful rehabilitation, it is only on failure in that respect that social rehabilitation aspects come into view. Developments in the society at large, such as changing values, individualization and differentiation of life styles, as well as mass unemployment, working world rationalization, a fragmented labour market and a trend towards shorter working lives, however, warrant renewed attention to the relationship among vocational and social rehabilitation. The problems involved in returning to work after coronary bypass surgery serve to show that occupational resettlement is strongly dependent on the work orientation a patient has developed over his life course as well as on the overall socioeconomic conditions at hand. The ICIDH and its concept of social handicap provides a useful point of departure in seeking to develop a theoretical interpretation of these findings and to expand them towards a systematic concept of social rehabilitation.