Sculpting soldiers and Reclaiming the Maimed: R. Tait McKenzie's work in the First World War period

This article examines the work of Canadian physician and physical educator Dr. Robert Tait McKenzie. It argues that during and after World War I, McKenzie made a unique contribution in military and medical history, spanning physical training, rehabilitation and commemoration via sculpture. McKenzie returned veterans to better physical function either directly by his hand, through devices and techniques of rehabilitation developed by him, or through advice given in his publications. In doing so, McKenzie helped lay a sound basis for modern physical therapy. In addition McKenzie's sculpture offered healing and consolation in its time.

[Tourville, a center of rehabilitation during the 1914-1918 war]

After WWI, an important centre of rehabilitation was created for the severely disabled in Tourvielle. It created the opportunity to invent and manufacture many prostheses to compensate the war amputations. In particular, the artificial arm/hand prosthesis enabled amputees to live more productive lives. Raphael Freida, who was an exceptional artist, illustrated the centre of rehabilitation when it was inaugurated by the town of Lyons.

[System of rehabilitation in the Armed Forces: history, current situation, and perspectives of development]

There are two main directions of development of medical rehabilitation in the Armed Forces of RF for now-days: medical-psychological rehabilitation of military service men among special contingents, realizing special military duty (air- and NAVY-staff, staff duty shift of Missile Force of Special Purpose) and medical rehabilitation of military service men, participants of battle action in accordance with sub-program "Social support and rehabilitation of invalids in consequence of battle action or battle trauma" of Federal Purpose Program in the sphere of social support of invalids. The authors mark necessity of reorientation of medical strategy from evaluation of determination of symptoms of already existent disease to evaluation of determination of adaptation reserves of organism of military service men, determination of changes in organism on the stage of pre-disease.

Rehabilitation medicine in countries of Central/Eastern Europe

PURPOSE

To describe attributes of rehabilitation medicine common to the five countries of Central Eastern Europe (CEE) and their implications for future challenges.

METHODS

Critical collection and study of pertinent data on evolvement and present state of rehabilitation medicine in CEE countries by a coordinated team of rehabilitation experts from each of the relevant countries.

RESULTS

CEE countries are similar in their need for rehabilitation medicine, its evolvement, present state and current practice. Settings largely emerged without strategic planning on the national level and lagged behind those in Central and Western Europe both in time and content.

CONCLUSION

The framework that evolved in all except Slovenia is not appropriate to needs. In order to meet future challenges all five CEE countries need the incorporation of inpatient, outpatient and community-based rehabilitation into one system.

And they shall walk: ideal versus reality in polio rehabilitation in the United States

This essay explores the significance that rehabilitation physicians and polio patients in the United States put on recovering the ability to walk. Polio often paralyzed or severely weakened the legs of those who contracted the disease. Regaining the ability to walk was thus a significant measure of recovery from the disease. However, walking meant more than the physical act itself. Regaining the ability to walk meant, in a symbolic sense, that one was no longer disabled, that one had again become normal. This attitude was shared by rehabilitation specialists and patients alike. This essay examines this attitude and the cultural values it embodied through a study of the efforts of selected polio survivors to learn to walk again and of the rehabilitation literature that held walking as an ideal. It also explores what happened when polio patients were unable to walk again because of the severity of their paralysis.

Polio chronicles: warm springs and disability politics in the 1930s

During the 1920s and 1930s, disabled polio survivors initiated a campaign which made them active, dissenting subjects in public discourse about disease and disability. Its source was a core of Warm Springs patients who wanted more than a healing refuge. They were well aware of the need to construct a new image of the disabled, and saw the resort's high public profile as a potent weapon in a cultural war to remake popular images of the disabled, whether as pathetic charitable objects or as horrific movie villains. Drawing on their own, disheartening experiences, this group of activists boldly critiqued the medical care offered most disabled patients as well as the training and attitudes of doctors, nurses and physical therapists. Protesting the narrow, medicalized definition of rehabilitation, they provocatively posed the need to "rehabilitate" prejudiced, able-bodied employers and health professionals. And most of all, they consciously designed the polio center at Warm Springs to function not as an inward-looking refuge but as an exemplar of the way polio survivors and other disabled people should be allowed to live, work and love. This story begins and ends in the 1930s. It traces a rise and fall: the rise of an activist community at the rehabilitative center at Warm Springs; and its decline with the creation of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (known popularly as the March of Dimes) in 1937.

[The 60th anniversary of the Croatian Balneological and Climatological Institute]

Sixty years ago, more precisely on 28 August 1949, Croatian Ministry of Health founded the Balneological and Climatological Institute as a result of a long-term endeavor and attempts to provide Croatia with an institution of this type, already existing in many European countries. In 1953, the Institute came under the management of the Yugoslav Academy of Arts and Sciences/YAAS [today Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts and became the Department of Balneoclimatology of the Medical Research Institute of YAAS. In 1958, it was transferred to the Medical School of the University of Zagreb, continuing to function first as the Institute of Balneoclimatology and Physical Therapy and, since 1963, as the Institute of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. In spite of financial difficulties and occasional lack of understanding from the officials in this field, significant contributions have been made to balneology during this time, justifying the need for such an institution. On 15 April 2008, the Institute of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation became Department for Balneoclimatology, under the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health of Andrija Stampar School of Public Health, Rockfellerova 4, Zagreb.

Stanisław Kuczborski (1912-2004): pulmonologist and phtysiatrist

Stanisław Kuczborski was born in Lódź on January 31, 1912. In 1937, he got his medical degree at the Medical Department of the Warsaw University. Afterwards, he was employed in a sanitarium in Otwock near Warsaw. As a physician, he was a pulmonary and phtysiatric consultant. After Second World War, Kuczborski performed many managerial duties in Lódź. In the 1950s, he was Deputy Director of the Tuberculosis Institute in Warsaw. He held foreign (Denmark, France) scientific internships and was a member of the International Union against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease in Paris. In Poland, he received an honorary membership of the Polish Phtysiatry and Pneumonology Association. Kuczborski published 70 works. He died in Lódź on August 23, 2004.

Tele-rehabilitation: present and future

During the last decade we assisted to relevant progress in rehabilitation studies and in technological development. From the combination of these issues rises the tele-rehabilitation--a subfield of telemedicine consisting of a system to control rehabilitation "at distance"--as an actual possibility of application and a promising development in the future. The present paper offers a short review of the state of the art in the field of tele-rehabilitation, with a special focus on upper limb tele-rehabilitation. The experience is also briefly reported of the preliminary application of the H-CAD (home care activity desk) system and the HELLODOC (Healthcare service linking tele-rehabilitation to disabled people and clinicians) tele-rehabilitation service, conducted by the authors within two European projects in the period 2003-2005 and 2005-2007 respectively.

[A historical review of the development of physical medicine and rehabilitation service in Vojvodina]

At the end of 1959, the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation was founded as a part of the Main Provincial Hospital in Novi Sad and it was located in the building built for that purpose in 1958. This institution specialized for rehabilitation was the first of its kind in the region of Vojvodina. Drilling of the first well in the area of today's Futoski park began in 1897. Chemical analysis showed the presence of iodine in the mineral water. Construction of the iodine spa started at the beginning of the 20th century, and it has been changing ever since. The Department of Child Rehabilitation, the first and only in Vojvodina, was established at the end of 1968, at the Institute of Mother and Child Health Care, and it has been treating children with cerebral palsy from the territory of Novi Sad. Although their names have been changed through the time, all three physically separated objects for medical rehabilitation have the same purpose: to promote and improve the quality of healthcare for children and adults with various disabilities, by using modern principles of physical therapy and medical rehabilitation. All three institutions, the present Medical Rehabilitation Clinic, Special Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases and the Child Rehabilitation Clinic, are teaching hospitals of the Faculty of Medicine and of the Secondary Medical School Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation is also an undergraduate and graduate course for medical students of the Faculty of Medicine in Novi Sad.

Vladimir Janda, MD, DSc: tribute to a master of rehabilitation

The purpose of this presentation is to pay tribute to the life's work of Professor Vladimir Janda, a key figure in the 20th Century rehabilitation movement. An accomplished neurologist, he founded the rehabilitation department at Charles University Hospital in Prague, Czechoslovakia. He was one of the seminal members of the Prague school of manual medicine and rehabilitation that expanded its influence throughout Central and Eastern Europe. His observations regarding muscle imbalances, faulty posture and gait, and their association with chronic pain syndromes, etiologically, diagnostically, and therapeutically, influenced the rehabilitation world. The authors comprise a multinational, multiprofessional group representative of rehabilitation specialists around the world who would like to pay tribute and give a final word of thanks to this innovative educator, clinician, and author.

TIES that BIND: an introduction to domain mapping as a visualization tool for virtual rehabilitation

The application of virtual reality (VR) to rehabilitation is a young, interdisciplinary field where clinical implementation very rapidly follows scientific discovery and technological advancement. Implementation is often so rapid that demonstration of intervention efficacy by investigators, and establishment of research and development priorities by funding bodies tend to be more reactive than proactive. An examination of the dynamic unfolding of the history of our young discipline may help us recognize the facilitators of current practice and identify the barriers that limit greater progress. This paper presents a first step towards the examination of the past and future growth of VR-based rehabilitation by presenting the use of concept maps to explore the publication history of application of VR to rehabilitation.

[The origins of rehabilitation: the first neuro and psychomotor rehabilitator's narratives]

The article is based on narratives gathered through anthropological methodology. The author recollects testimonies of the first women working in Italy as Rehabilitators of children affected by Neuro and Psicomotricity disorders.

[Contributions to the history of foundation and development of physical medicine and rehabilitation services in Serbia]

It is widely accepted that rehabilitation, as a new scientific discipline, was initiated by the foundation of the National Institute for Rehabilitation in Sokobanjska St. 13. However, the available data do not support this assumption. According to the article 23 of the Law on the Sanitary Code and Public Health, brought by the Serbian Principality in March of 1881, institutions for treating the sick and care for the incurable and disabled were to be provided. Numerous activities foreseen by laws of that time can be defined today as occupational and functional work therapy, as well as professional rehabilitation. Thus, there was a positive and truly humane attitude towards the disabled, resulting in better treatment outcome, less adverse events, with the aim of better professional education and training for occupational opportunities. Health-care centers of Serbia used to apply physical methods: electrotherapy, massage and physical training, documented in Serbian archives from 1888. The above mentioned data show that we have every right to be proud of the history of our profession.