The author in this assignment is going to outline and explain the social and medical models of disability and discuss how these models might impact on practice. The author feels that the main issues in disability revolve around oppression unemployment, discrimination, inequality, exclusion and poverty. The author is going to consider the ways in which disability can be conceptualised in social as well as physical terms. The idea of the medical and the social model was taken quite simply and explicitly from the distinction originally made between impairment and disability by the Union of the physically impaired against segregation UPIAS (1976) which claims that disability was the disadvantage or restriction of activity caused by a contemporary social organisation which takes little or no account of people who have physical impairments and thus excludes them from participation in the mainstream social activities. Hahn, H (1988) says disability stems from the failure of a structured social environment to adjust to the needs and aspirations of citizens with disabilities rather than the inability of a disabled individual to meet the demands of society. The world health organisation WHO (2002)) defines disability as a contextual variable, dynamic over time and in relation to circumstances. One is more or less disabled based on the interaction between the person and the individual, institutional and social environments. It also acknowledges that the prevalence of disability corresponds to social and economic status.
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The author feels that the western biomedical model is highly influential in defining and limiting our understanding of disability. Under the medical model the problems that are associated with disability are deemed to reside within the individual, and it sees the causes of the problem as stemming from the functional limitations or psychological losses which are assumed to arise from disability. The medical model assumes that the first step...