Abstract:
Objectives: This paper reviews the current literature on acquired brain injury (ABI) with a focus on ABI burden, importance of community integration, and community integration definitions suggested by the literature. Method: Literature review Results: Acquired brain injury (ABI) is referred to a diverse range of disabilities resulted of injury in different parts of the brain. People with ABI are in face with different aspects of individual, family and social concerns or burdens which directly affect their lives. Although community integration as an ultimate aim of rehabilitation is optimal approach to overcome their consequences, a comprehensive concept of it is always challenging. There are several different definitions for community integration including various aspects of life with ABI. Conclusion: Living with brain injury constitutes an expanded experience of community isolation and consequences which reduces participation and social integration. Community integration is aimed to condense concerns of people with ABI with returning them to community.
Machine summary:
Iranian Rehabilitation Journal, Vol. 12, No. 21, September 2014 Review Community Integration for After Acquired Brain Injury: A Literature Review Shahriar Parvaneh, PhD.
Living with brain injury constitutes an expanded experience of community isolation and consequences which reduces participation and social integration.
Importance of Community Integration for people with ABI People with ABI experience limitations such as cognitive, emotional, psychosocial, and physical impairments as a result of brain injury which dramatically affect different aspects of the individuals’ lives (27).
Later in that decade, community integration was acknowledged as a right for people with disabilities (32,36) and many were returned from institutes to live with their family; however this movement put the burden of care on the families and other caregivers (17,37).
Human rights, normalization, deinstitutionalization, and social role valorization are all concepts that emphasize providing opportunity for all people to live and actively participate in the community.
For example, a systematic review of effectiveness of rehabilitation programs for people with ABI defined five areas of ‘community reintegration’ as independence and social integration, caregiver burden, satisfaction with quality of life, productivity, and return to driving (McCabe et al.
Occupation, residential environment, social support, and overall satisfaction (63)(Halpern, Nave, Close, & Nelson, 1986); leisure participation, family contact, and acceptance (64,65); and social engagements, interactions with neighbors and other members of community, and sense of belonging (66) are further examples for dimensions of community integration identified by different researchers.
The definition of community integration: perspectives of people with brain injuries.
Assessment of the community integration following rehabilitation for traumatic brain injury.