Disability, Health and Wellbeing

Question 1

What is disability?

Answer 1

• A state of being closely related and intertwined with illness
• Disability and illness are not discrete entities; a major point of overlap is chronicity
• Inset with a society’s culture and carries with it cultural meanings

Question 2

What is the medical model of disability?

Answer 2

Definition of disability: the physical/mental characteristic that is deficit compared to the normal standard is what is causing the disability

• Also called individual model/personal tragedy model
• Focus of the medical model s treating/curing the disability through medicine and compensating for it through rehabilitation

e.g. A vision impaired man called Ross is at a bus-loop attempting to find their particular bus stop but cannot read the signs as they are in a small font. The medical model view of this is that the issue is with Ross’s vision and that is why he cannot find the stop. The medical model would aim to see if they could treat/cure the vision impairment and/or implement a technology to help Ross carry out that function of
finding the bus stop independently as a person with full vision would.

Question 3

What is the Social Model of Disability?

Answer 3

• Divides the impairment (the part of the person’s body/functioning that is not normal) and disability (the barriers/oppression/discrimination put upon people with impairment by a non-disabled society
• The focus of the social model is on the structural, environmental and social change of society to reduce disability for people with impairment

e.g. A vision impaired man called Ross is at a bus-loop attempting to find their particular bus stop but cannot read the signs as they are in a small font. The social model view is that the issue is with the lack of access in the environment for Ross. Rather than trying to fix Ross/his vision, the social model would aim to change the environment/society e.g. by adding large font or braille to make it more accessible to individuals with different abilities.

Question 4

What kind of study design is most commonly used for studying disability?

Answer 4

• Participatory Research Design
• Qualitative in nature
• Aims to reduce power imbalance inherit in the research process
• Are often action-orientated; to come up with results that can be applied practically

Question 5

What is the disability paradox?

Answer 5

• Observation that people with disabilities consistently report high QoL, despite living a life that others perceive as characterised by hardships
  e. g. Locked in syndrome study showed that despite family members and carers of people with LIS underestimating their QoL, most people with LIS report satisfactory QoL

Question 6

Why does the disability paradox occur?

Answer 6

• Disablement is not always unexpected (many people are born with the impairment or develop it gradually; they do not experience biographical disruption)
• Processes of adaptation and accommodation (after the initial shock over time become used to the physical embodiment and they will develop strategies to deal with it and their QoL will increase after the initial decrease)
• Disablement becomes every day and mundane
• Alot of people have different perceptions of QoL