Socio-Economic Status and Patient Rehabilitation in India: A Community Physiotherapist’s Odyssey

Abstract

Rehabilitation of patients belonging to lower socio-economic status in India can be challenging. This is due to many reasons. Some of the commonly found causes are lack of adequate health care facilities, patient overload and lack of skilled physiotherapists and lack of awareness among the patients. Given the time and resource constraints in a country like India, it is important to look for cost-effective solutions that could help in alleviation of the symptoms of these patients. One of the cost-effective ways to tackle these issues could be greater emphasis on community-based rehabilitation as opposed to institution-based rehabilitation. There are various advantages of community-based rehabilitation, taking into consideration its cost-effectiveness and time-saving strategies. It can thus be concluded that community-based rehabilitation could be viewed as an effective solution to tackle health issues affecting larger populations, especially those that lack access to institution-based health care facilities.

Keywords: Rehabilitation, health care, physiotherapist, community-based rehabilitation, institution-based rehabilitation