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Interdisciplinarity and Rehabilitation Research

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New Dynamics of Disability and Rehabilitation

Abstract

Interest has been accelerating in the promotion of interdisciplinary research to ensure an integrative approach to health science. Perhaps no other area of health research more obviously benefits from interdisciplinary research than rehabilitation. Besides biomedical and clinical practice-oriented research, interdisciplinary research is needed for rehabilitation management within health systems. After clarifying the notion of interdisciplinarity in general, this chapter argues that rehabilitation—understood as a health strategy that primarily aims to optimize human functioning across (simple to complex) domains of action—is ideally suited to the interdisciplinary research paradigm. This is partly because rehabilitation practice fundamentally concerns ‘functioning’ (as understood in the WHO’s International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Cochrane formally approved the establishment of the Cochrane Rehabilitation Field on 22 October 2016 (see https://rehabilitation.cochrane.org/about-us).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Swiss Paraplegic Research, Nottwil, Switzerland

    Jerome Bickenbach

  2. The Swedish Institute for Disability Research, School of Health Sciences, Örebro University, Örebro, Sweden

    Berth Danermark

Authors
  1. Jerome Bickenbach
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  2. Berth Danermark
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Correspondence to Jerome Bickenbach .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Work, Child Welfare and Social Policy, Oslo Metropolitan University, Oslo, Norway

    Ivan Harsløf

  2. Department of Neurorehabilitation Rigshospitalet, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Ingrid Poulsen

  3. Department of Learning and Philosophy, Aalborg University Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Kristian Larsen

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Bickenbach, J., Danermark, B. (2019). Interdisciplinarity and Rehabilitation Research. In: Harsløf, I., Poulsen, I., Larsen, K. (eds) New Dynamics of Disability and Rehabilitation. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-7346-6_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-7346-6_13

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-13-7345-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-13-7346-6

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