Discussion
The paper combines three theories into a single general theory of rehabilitation centred on adaptation:
a.
The biopsychosocial model of illness and health.
15
b.
The general theory of behavior.
37
c.
The theory of motivation
56 (Maslow’s hierarchy of needs).
It reframes rehabilitation as a systematic series of assistive and catalytic interventions guiding the natural adaptation process, enabling the person to achieve and maintain their psychosocial equilibrium against set points in each domain of need.
From passive to active
This theory makes the patient the central, active agent in rehabilitation, not the passive recipient presupposed in biomedical healthcare.
The theory requires services to be person-centred,
44 often proclaimed but not well practised,
64 because, when adapting, the person explores and learns new ways to achieve their goals. The person must be an active learner engaged in the process.
65,66 Because the patient is seeking expertise rather than the professional giving it, power transfers from the professionals to the patient, which is challenging for some professionals. An active patient naturally undertakes self-management.
7
Acknowledging the person’s active role in rehabilitation should encourage the following:
a.
more research into and resources for teaching life-long self-management,
b.
professionals and organisations to relinquish some control,
c.
organisations to become person-centred.
The environment
The vital role of the environment in learning and adaptation was demonstrated by Hubel and Wiesel, who discovered the catastrophic effect of absent early visual input on the development of vision.
67 Conversely, an enriched environment after stroke can lead to structural and behavioural benefits in mice.
68
The importance of a rehabilitative (or adaptive) environment for people after a stroke is apparent: ‘People with stroke who receive organised inpatient (stroke unit) care are more likely to be alive, living at home, and independent in looking after themselves one year after their stroke’.18 The broad nature of the facilitative environment is illustrated by the essential features of stroke unit care:69,70
a.
Structured assessment procedures
b.
Policies on early stages of management of common problems
c.
Policy on the ongoing rehabilitation
d.
Expertise in stroke management and rehabilitation with regular team education
e.
Multidisciplinary teamwork with regular planned team meetings
f.
Involvement of patients and families
Other studies have shown that:
a.
Planned changes in the physical environment alter the behaviour of patients, increasing their activities.
71–74
b.
Social factors influence adaptation; for example, after a stroke, community activity is influenced by social networks
75 and being with other people is associated with more movement of the affected arm.
76
The harm caused by inappropriate environments is also clear. In a hospital, adaptation is prevented by physical constraints, such as beds that are difficult to get out of, a cluttered, noisy environment, and, more powerfully, by cultural and organisational factors, such as risk avoidance and an expectation of delivering care rather than encouraging independence. Inactivity leads to dependence upon carers, loss of confidence, self-esteem, and muscle bulk.77–79
This theory emphasises the crucial need for all healthcare environments to facilitate adaptation after acute loss and maintenance of skills when admitted with any disability. Moreover, it highlights the risk of a poor, unenriched environment, with patients missing the opportunity to recover through loss of confidence, muscle wasting, or becoming psychologically dependent on care.
It should encourage research into improving all healthcare environments, primarily physical and cultural aspects of hospital environments, to facilitate adaptation to illness and prevent loss of skills and abilities.
Resetting psychosocial equilibrium set points
People with marked changes in their capabilities may need to reset their psychological, social or self-fulfilment set points to achieve psychosocial equilibrium.
37
Research has described coping strategies associated with long-term disabling conditions and suggests therapies, such as increasing a person’s empowerment or self-management skills and using peer support. Goal adjustment has been described in people with long-term conditions,
80 including cancers.
81
This theory suggests research is needed to assist people to adapt their long-term aspirations, accounting for their altered abilities. I have yet to find significant studies on how and when to help patients adjust their goals.
Rehabilitation services
Adaptation is a continuous process, active from the outset. It is not limited to therapy sessions or any phase of an illness. The general theory of rehabilitation highlights the central role of assessment, formulation and planning in giving advice and suggesting specific interventions. Consequently, expert rehabilitation input must be available in all healthcare settings, especially in acute hospital inpatient settings, including intensive care. Rehabilitation should supplement biomedical healthcare as a parallel service.
The continuous nature of adaptation also means there should be no boundaries between the many services a person needs. Not all are health services, but there should be no barriers between them.
The solution is to ‘establish a local provider rehabilitation network to include primary, secondary, tertiary health care, mental health, social care, independent and third sector providers’.
82,83 The crucial common feature linking rehabilitation services is assisting adaptation.
The theory suggests research into how rehabilitation services can form effective networks might significantly improve the use of resources.
Normality and health
Many professionals and patients strive for normality. Georges Canguilhem showed that defining normal is impossible.
84 Normal is particularly misused in rehabilitation.
85 Some rehabilitation professionals and some relatives want the patient to achieve the performance of tasks
normally, especially without using ‘compensatory’ movements.
86
Compensatory movements are usually appropriate adaptive movements, which may be best for a patient.
87,88 Children with congenital disorders such as phocomelia, cerebral palsy or cleft palate will adapt naturally as they grow; their way of undertaking activities is the best way for them. People with slowly progressive conditions such as muscular dystrophy, Huntington’s disease or inflammatory arthritis often adapt without assistance.
Two books by a philosopher with a long-term lung condition, Havi Carel, have explored the concept of health in people with disabling conditions.
89,90 In the first,
Illness, she refers to ‘… the ability to adapt to new, more limited capacities and the creativity that emerges …’. She prefers the word adaptability to ‘… refer to the behavioural flexibility of ill or disabled people adjusting their behaviour in response to their condition’. She thinks that these approaches enable someone to be healthy within an illness.
89
In her second,
Phenomenology of Illness, she notes that many people with even quite severe limitations are as happy and report their sense of well-being at similar levels to people considered to be healthy. She says, ‘Rather, cultivating well-being within illness and learning to live well with physical and mental constraints requires effort and is an achievement …’.
90
The General Theory of Rehabilitation suggests that a person could be considered healthy when they have regained the capacity to maintain physiological and psychosocial balance in the face of typical changes in their circumstances and can focus on their self-fulfilment goals.
Rehabilitation: Roles and resources
This theory focuses rehabilitation on achieving the best adaptation possible. Consequently, recovery from tissue damage is not essential, a return to a previous state is not expected, and adaptation occurs at any stage of life or an illness. Adaptation will be judged by social integration.
The various roles of expert rehabilitation are illustrated in
Figure 4: diagnosis, planning, catalysis (including organisation), and assistance. Note that the provision of care is not a direct rehabilitation responsibility.
The crucial first step is a diagnostic assessment, such as a comprehensive geriatric assessment
91 or a person-centred rehabilitation assessment.
46 The theory suggests that a formulation based on the biopsychosocial model of illness can lead to well-informed advice and well-targeted actions while avoiding wasteful activities. We can only select who will benefit from sound advice and guidance once they are seen.
92
Some patients will need environmental changes. The rehabilitation service will need to assess what equipment, ensure it is suitable, and teach patients and carers how to use it. The equipment is essential for successful adaptation; this extends to altering living accommodations and the wider environment. These costs are not rehabilitation costs but societal costs associated with helping a person adapt.
Most patients will need advice on problem-solving and on what and how to learn. Learning goals are effective at achieving change.
93 Many patients require only brief, specific expert rehabilitation input. A few patients with severe or complex losses or difficulty in learning and adapting will need significant, sometimes substantial, ongoing input. This will typically focus on learning skills where the risk or the need for active feedback requires an expert to help.
Thus, people based in specialist inpatient rehabilitation units must not be concerned that their work is undervalued, nor should commissioners consider they are paying for unnecessary high-cost services. Further, the costs of care, which may be great, arise wherever the patient is; they are not a rehabilitation cost, though rehabilitation services may have to provide care.
Evaluation of the theory
I will evaluate this hypothesis against the criteria of a good theory.
17
This paper has suggested some testable changes in rehabilitation that, if found effective, will validate it. They include:
a.
Discussing and assisting with goal adjustment.
b.
Increasing emphasis on teaching self-management.
c.
Educating patients, carers, and professionals that rehabilitation is usually a facilitating and catalytic service, not a dose-dependent assistive service.
d.
Using teams with more expertise in the initial analysis, formulation, and planning is likely more effective than teams with less expertise.
e.
Developing cross-agency and cross-organisation networks to increase collaboration and cooperation between the many services involved.
It is coherent, combining ideas and theories consistent with the central hypothesis.
It is economical, building on three ideas:
b.
An advisory, educational expert service can guide and facilitate adaptation.
c.
Rehabilitation’s goal is to facilitate a person in achieving equilibrium between the social, psychological, and self-fulfilment aspects of their life.
It is broadly applicable, encompassing all areas of healthcare rehabilitation in people of all ages and with all types of illness.
It has considerable explanatory power:
•
Rehabilitation acts on the adaptive process, not the person. This explains its effectiveness across almost all conditions, regardless of prognosis, age, duration, and the underlying condition,
•
Catalysts alter the ease of a process and do so at minimal levels. This explains how low doses of rehabilitation input may have a detectable effect and why it is difficult to find an apparent dose–response relationship,
•
Natural recovery is adaptation without input from a recognised expert rehabilitation team. This explanation recognises that adaptation includes seeking and receiving help from others.
•
No rehabilitation refers to the absence of expert rehabilitation services’ assessment, advice, and interventions.
•
Adaptation may involve every domain of life and many organisations. This explains why a healthcare service undertaking the catalytic process must draw on help from almost anyone, a marked contrast to biomedical healthcare.
Last, this theory explains one otherwise startling observation. In 1935, a person with a spinal cord injury could expect to remain physically and socially dependent, with an early death. Now, they can expect a near-normal life span and full social participation. Rehabilitation has transformed lives despite the lack of any recovery in motor control or sensory function. Rehabilitation services were developed to assist adaptation, focusing on social integration, teaching patients how to care for themselves, providing and teaching them to use equipment, and advocating for society to adapt to their needs.
Weaknesses
This theory has weaknesses. It is untested. It gives an overview and can suggest ways to improve rehabilitation, but it does not provide details on how those improvements can be undertaken. It does not tell the professional faced by a patient what to do.
On the other hand, it is a development of ideas that have been around for many years, and it tells the person facing a patient how they should think about the situation. It sets out a general framework, comparable to the biopsychosocial framework, that encompasses many more detailed theories and places them in a greater context.
Finally, a theory is neither right nor wrong; its influence must judge it. A theory that improves understanding and promotes new or better ways of helping patients is an advance on earlier ideas. This theory should be tested by use. I expect it will be improved, particularly by increasing details; it may eventually be replaced.
Clinical messages
•
Rehabilitation facilitates a person’s adaptation to their illness.
•
Its central role is as a catalyst, formulating a rehabilitation plan.
•
Its other leading role is to help a person learn new skills, especially in self-management;
•
It provides direct assistance in learning and practising activities for patients with complex or severe losses.
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