LIFE AFTER INJURY by Liz Hobbs, Susan
McDonald, and Ann O'Callaghan,
published by Third World Network, Penang, Malaysia,
2002
18 x 25 cm, 593 pages with over 1,000 illustrations.
Paperback only. ISBN:983-9747-77-0
Forward by David Werner
As the title of this very practical hand-book implies,
"Life After Injury" is about far more than
physiotherapy and rehabilitation in the more limited
sense. It covers the full range of the understanding
and assistance that severely injured persons need
to overcome both physical and psycho-social trauma,
so that they can return to the fullest possible participation
with their families and communities. While the central
focus of this manual is on physical (and to some extent
occupational) therapy in difficult circumstances,
the comprehensive, down-to-earth approach covers a
wide range of related problems and needs. These extend
from the event of the injury, through emergency care,
hospitalization (when possible), and finally integration
back into the community.
The book is remarkably broad in scope. And it is
written with a clarity and simplicity of language
that can be understood by the community-level rehabilitation
worker or village health worker. Yet at the same time,
the book provides sufficient detail and depth so that
fully trained physiotherapists, doctors, and nurses
will learn an enormous amount from it.
An outstanding feature of this book is its thoughtful,
problem-solving approach. The authors methodically
guide the reader in figuring out the unique combination
of needs and possibilities for each person. And they
do this in ways that include the injured person, family
and friends in the therapeutic process.
One reason this book is so down-to-earth and practical
in terms of rehabilitation in difficult settings,
is the authors' wealth of experience, both in the
Australian "Out Back" and in a number of
developing countries. I first met Liz Hobbs when—as
a volunteer physiotherapist— she visited PROJIMO,
a community-based rehabilitation program run by disabled
villagers in the mountains of Western Mexico. Liz
came to learn and to teach rather than to provide
direct services. In the process she helped the team
of disabled rehab workers gain a deeper and broader
understanding of physical therapy, and how to adapt
it to a community-based context. In the process, Liz
learned about low-cost approaches and innovative technologies.
Subsequently, Liz built on this experience by facilitating
informal training courses at Mas Validos, an urban
community rehabilitation program in western Mexico,
started by disabled graduates of PROJIMO.
For me it has been a delight to help the authors
in a small way with this book, by reviewing and making
suggestions concerning the text and illustrations.
This is because "Life after Injury" responds
to an enormous and still widely unmet need. Let me
explain:
Over the last two decades or so I have visited dozens
of rehabilitation programs—both institutional
and "community-based," in many countries,
but especially in the South. Repeatedly I have been
struck by methodological shortcomings, and sometimes
counterproductive aspects, of rehabilitation services
in general and physiotherapy in particular. Too often
physical therapy has become a kind of thoughtless
mechanical ritual. In center after center, the same
sort of rote "water pump" exercises are
applied to virtually everyone, irrespective of the
specific injuries or needs. Added to this, there is
often a tendency by therapy workers to look at their
client as a "patient" rather than a person,
as an object to be manipulated and repaired, rather
than as a partner in an open-ended, caring, problem-solving
process.)
The beauty of "Life After Injury" is that
the authors encourage rehab workers and therapists—
in partnership with the injured person and relatives—to
sensitively yet systematically evaluate the person's
full range of needs, fears, hopes, and possibilities.
Family and community understanding and support—along
with consideration of local and cultural factors—are
celebrated as integral to this process.
Often physiotherapists and rehab workers find themselves
in daunting situations of poverty or war, sometimes
with dozens of injured persons to deal with, as well
as a shortage of staff and equipment. They are at
a loss regarding how to make the best use of their
time, energy and skills. This manual provides many
suggestions for coping in such difficult circumstances.
These include teaching and working with family members,
with care providers, and with the disabled persons
themselves—so that they gain the necessary understanding
and hands-on skills to help one another with therapy,
rehab, and meeting of basic needs.
For such demanding situations, the authors include
all kinds of suggestions for "appropriate technology"
rather than high-tech assistive devices. In this way
they help to spark the imaginations of rehab and therapy
workers to seek low-cost, innovative solutions.
What makes this book such an enormously useful tool
for rehabilitation workers and therapists at every
level is its wealth of precise, useful, very detailed
information presented in a well-organized and accessible
way. Hundreds of instructive line drawings, integrated
into the text, add greatly to communication of methods
and techniques.
In sum, "Life After Injury" is a goldmine
of comprehensive information for assessing needs and
carrying out a plan of therapeutic action in difficult
circumstances … in a way that preserves the
dignity and caring human touch of all concerned.
— David Werner
The six major parts of the book are:
- Part 1: Introduction
- Part 2: Healing
- Part 3: Becoming Able
- Part 4: Joining In
- Part 5: Getting Organized
- Part 6: Appendices
Life After Injury can be purchased through HealthWrights
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| Hans Husum, MD |
'Doctors and surgeons often consider
the job complete when victims of injury are carried
out of the operating theatre - and definitely
so when the patients have left the orthopaedic
centre with a prosthesis on. Twenty years of trauma
care and surgery in war zones and minefields in
the South has taught us that they are wrong: a
lot of trauma victims in poor communities suffer
from chronic pain and a sense of worthlessness
- so much so that they simply cannot use an artificial
limb - much less provide for their family. In
fact, poverty is as much a trauma as the injury
itself. This book tells how the victim, with his
family and with YOU, can find strategies to cope.
The book is a MUST for anybody - graduate and
non-graduate - involved in trauma care.'
Hans Husum MD
Author of Save Lives, Save Limbs and War Surgery
Field Manual.
|
| David Werner |
'The beauty of Life After Injury
is that the authors encourage rehabilitation workers
and therapists - in partnership with the injured
person and relatives - to sensitively yet systematically
evaluate the person's full range of needs, fears,
hopes, and possibilities. Family, and community
understanding and support, along with consideration
of local and cultural factors, are celebrated
as integral to this process. In sum, Life After
Injury is a goldmine of comprehensive information
for assessing needs and carrying out rehabilitation
in difficult circumstances in a way that preserves
the dignity and caring human touch of all concerned.'
David Werner
Author of Where There Is No Doctor, Helping Health
Workers Learn, Disabled Village Children and Nothing
About Us Without Us.
|
| Ann A Wilcock |
'Based on the Ottawa Charter for
Health Promotion's premise that "Health is
created and lived by people within the settings
of their everyday life; where they learn, work,
play and love" and in the tradition of community-based
rehabilitation approaches, Life After Injury promotes
recovery in the broadest sense - as more than
just survival or even access to basic rehabilitation.
It encompasses the notions of rebuilding lives
and injured and disadvantaged people being able
to provide for self and family and fully participate
in community life.'
Ann A. Wilcock
Author of numerous publications including Occupational
Perspectives of Health and Occupation for Health:
A Journey from Self Health to Prescription.
|
Htun Htun Oo
TCFB |
I have been reading Life After
Injury book since I got it. I do like it very
much, simple writting style, easy to understand
the information and teach me a lot. It make
me some of my ideas more stronger by reading
this book, I mean this is a biggest part of
the disabled people Indepedent. There is so
many things what they can do by themselves,
by their family support and/or their community
support. If our people get this information
in Burmese language, I do believe that this
book will give strength to them or us who are
suffering from war injuries, mine accidents
and other trauma or violence. All of this information
need to deliver to not only health workers but
also to all disabled people who love to help
other disable people.
Htun Htun Oo
A Burmese refugee who has been doing
surgery and rehab in the jungle for trauma victims
on the Thai-Burma border, in rather dangerous
conditions.
|
Mike Davies
|
This well laid out and practical
book, which emphasises participatory approaches,
fills a gap in the current CBR and rehab literature.
Given the rapid increase in trauma-based impairments,
the arrival of this book is indeed timely.
Mr Mike Davies,
Coordinator of the CBR Advisory Working Group
for CBM International, Philippines
.
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