‘Handicap’ and ‘disability’ are not terms associated with the ICF model. The ICF model was actually developed in order to phase away these terms because they were deemed pejorative and discriminatory. The ICF primary concepts that replaced these terms are; impairments, activity limitations and participation restrictions. For example, a wheelchair bound spinal cord patient may no longer be able to wrestle or ride horses (activity limitation) due to paralysis (impairment), he may be also be unable to take part in religious activities due to lack of public transport accommodations (participation restrictions) but is otherwise healthy and not ‘disabled’ in other areas of functioning.
ICF is named as it is because of its stress is on health and functioning , rather than on disability. Previously, disability began where health ended. Once a person was disabled, S/he was placed in a separate category. In order to move away from this kind of thinking, the ICF was developed as a tool for measuring functioning in society, no matter what the reason for one’s impairments. It is a much more versatile tool with a broader area of use than a traditional classification of health and disability.
This is a radical shift. From emphasizing people’s disabilities, we now focus on their level of health.
ICF puts the notions of ‘health’ and ‘disability’ in a new light. It acknowledges that every human being can experience a decrement in health and thereby experience some disability. This is not something that happens to only a minority of humanity. ICF thus ‘mainstreams’ the experience of disability and recognizes it as a universal human experience.
I highly recommend this link.
0
0