Disability is a frequent
accompaniment of disease processes. The
ICIDH (International Classification of Impairment,
Disability and Handicap) defined disability
as a limitation in daily activities resulting
from impairment associated with physical
or mental conditions or heath problems.
The primary disease is diagnosed and treated,
but the associated disability is often underrecognised
or undealt with. The World Disability Day
Symposium organized on 4th December 2004.
World Disability Day was aimed at providing
comprehensive information on disability
to medical and paramedical professionals,
students and lay people.
Conceived
to cover a wide range of topics, the symposium
brought together a galaxy of experts from
various disciplines of the medical profession,
neurologists, psychiatrists, physiotherapists,
psychotherapists, under one umbrella to
discuss and importantly to introspect. The
impact of disability associated with various
neurological disorders such as epilepsy,
stroke, Parkinson's disease, Dementia, Head
Injury and psychiatric illnesses formed
the gamut of the prelunch sessions. The
afternoon session primarily consisted of
neurobehavioral rehabilitation measures
using pharmacological and various non-pharmacological
means, such as physical and occupational
therapy, cognitive behavior therapy, cognitive
retraining and finally the multidisciplinary
approach to neurorehabilitation. The distinguished
speakers included Dr. R Sridharan, Prof.
AV Srinivasan, Prof. MR Shivakumar, Prof.
ES Krishnamoorthy, Dr. Lakshmi Vijaykumar,
Dr. S Sundar, Mr. Ravi Samuel and Mrs. K
Prabhu, with Prof. Krishnamoorthy Srinivas,
Dr. Ravi Ramamurthy & Dr. MC Vasudevan providing
their expert opinions by chairing the sessions.
Dr Stephen Fleminger from the Institute
of Psychiatry, King's College, London, provided
the international touch with the state of
affairs in the Developing world.
The Sixth
ES Krishnamoorthy Memorial Lecture concluded
this exhaustive multidisciplinary workshop.
Delivering the oration, Dr Fleminger, enthralled
the audience with his exhaustive narrative
on state of the art rehabilitation in head
injury, thus bringing the workshop to a
grand finale.
