Disability, society and medicine

Question 1

What is the biomedical approach to disability?

Answer 1

• Disability is the result of a disease, trauma or some other health condition
• Individuals with impairment are anomalies, or deviations from a normal healthy state
• The aim of medicine is to prevent disability or return the disabled to a state of normal functioning (rehabilitation)

Question 2

What is the biological definition of impairment?

Answer 2

Organic/physical loss, abnormality, disease or condition.

Question 3

What is the biological definition of disability?

Answer 3

Restriction of ability within a range considered normal resulting from impairment.

Question 4

What is the biological definition of social disadvantage?

Answer 4

Social/economic/psychological handicap as a consequence of disability.

Question 5

What are the disability interventions of the biological model?

Answer 5

• Aimed at the individual and the impairment
• Facilitate normal functioning (rehabilitation)

E.g. surgery, speech therapy, hearing aids, glasses

Question 6

What is the social model of disability?

Answer 6

• Rejects impairment as inevitable cause of disability
• Disadvantages result less from impairment than from society’s inability to accommodate difference
• Barriers in society disable those with impairment
• Interventions: social change not just medical intervention or ‘prevention’ through prenatal selection

Question 7

Give examples of reasonable adjustments that can be made for wheelchair users?

Answer 7

Ramps, lifts, accessible toilets/reception desks/examination rooms.

Question 8

Give examples of reasonable adjustments that can be made for people with learning disabilities?

Answer 8

Easy read info, double appointments, key Makaton signs, recording special needs on patient record.

Question 9

What are social barriers?

Answer 9

Stereotypes - over-simplified, widely shared representations of a social group.

Prejudice - affective evaluations (positive and negative) associated with stereotypes.

Discrimination - behaviour influenced by attitudes

Question 10

What is direct discrimination as defined by the equality act?

Answer 10

To treat one particular group of people less favourably than others

Question 11

What is indirect discrimination as defined by the equality act?

Answer 11

Rules, regulations or procedures that have the effect of discriminating against groups of people.

Question 12

What is victimisation as defined by the equality act?

Answer 12

To punish or treat a person less favourably because that person has asserted his/her rights.