Page 15 - Handbook of Electronic Assistive Technology

2 HANDBOOK OF ELECTRONIC ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY

instantaneously as no relevance was given – I’ve always thought it didn’t need to be like
that.
We are fundamentally a limited chemical soup, structured in a series of interlinked com-
puterised pathways with a variety of interrelated inputs, mediators and outputs; working
on areas of feeling, moving and reasoning. As we develop we start simply and become
more and more differentiated. What we can functionally do is initially challenged by child
growth; muddled then by our emotional and structural fragilities through adulthood and
finally limited by our capacity to maintain senses and biomechanical abilities into old age.

Concepts of Impairment Function and Participation

Old concepts of how health impairments lead to physical disability and then handicap
were revised by the World Health Organisation (2002), when they developed a ‘com-
mon language for functioning, disability and health’, the International Classification of
Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) (Fig. 1-1).
This structures the states of:
1� Health in terms of function, activity and participation; and
2� Disability in terms of impairment, limitation of activity and restriction in
participation; from both an individual and societal perspective.

This utilises aspects of both a medical and social model of disability to balance the
problems of internal health and developmental challenges and the external responses to
them, to help us all in developing pathways of appropriate, holistic management.
These factors are key when thinking about how we support children and adults with
health disorders. Minimise the impact on the individual by maximising health, potential
individual function and participation: health and habilitation. Medical therapy teams,
engineers, innovators and social support all working together to potentiate ability and
minimise disability.

Health Condition
(Disorder or Disease)

Body Functions and
structures Activities Participation
Impairments Limitations Restrictions

Environmental factors Personal factors
FIGURE 1-1 International classification of functioning disability and health (WHO, 2012)�