The Effect of Communities Based Rehabilitation for Disabled Persons in Ubon Ratchathani Province

Abstract

In 2008, there were 22,012 disabled persons in Ubon Ratchatani mostly with physical disabilities in rural areas. Based on Division of Physical Therapy’s record, Sappasitthiprasong Hospital, stroke patients were the third most common to be treated in the acute phase. They were quickly discharged without rehabilitation service in their communities and became burden of family and society. A rehabilitation service was developed to provide these people with disabilities as follows; 1) establish a network of rehabilitation for people with disabilities, 2) train the villages’ health volunteers, 3) creat a rehabilitation storage program, 4) establish a caravan of mobile rehabilitation service into the communities, and 5) establish a caravan of mobile repairing mobility aids service for disabilities. Therefore, the aims of this study was to study the effect of communities based rehabilitation for disabled persons in Ubon Ratchathani province. A descriptive research was performed in a group of people with disabilities in Ubon Ratchatani from January 2008 to September 2010. Data were analyzed employing descriptive statistics. The results showed that total persons with disabilities increasingly received rehabilitation in communities in 2008, 2009 and 2010; 24.79 percent, 36.88 and 83.8 percent respectively. The total amounts of mobility aids for disabilities also increased. People with disabilities could help themselves increasingly from 62.5percent, to 69.6 and 71.0 percent. Incidence of bedsore decreased from 1.85 percent to 1.62 percent and 1.02 percent. The amount of damaged mobility aids repairing increased. This model of the communities based rehabilitation for disable persons in cooperation with a network in Ubon Ratchatani increased the number of people with disabilities provided with rehabilitation service which enhances more selfhelp for the disabilities.