Abstract
Facilities are sufficient and rehabilitation is uninterrupted in West Germany for patients with paraplegia following accidents at work. For all other paraplegic patients co-ordination and facilities leave something to be desired, as has frequently been pointed out in the literature.
During the past few years there has been a gradual improvement with closer cooperation and integration of essential services. Registration of all new lesions would be a great asset.
It has to be realised that, as the quality of initial treatment improves, the number of those able to benefit from rehabilitation will increase. Provision for this requires to be made and a number of problems remain to be solved.
When Guttmann, 10 years ago first returned to Germany, only a few departments were able to provide adequate treatment. By demonstrating his results he has convinced his colleagues and the administrators; and by his active encouragement he has drawn attention to the many problems still awaiting solution.
Visits to, and periods of work at Stoke Mandeville have shown what can be achieved by doctors, administrators, nurses and physiotherapists. Particularly impressive has been the organisation of sport for the disabled, which, in the words of one of our team at the Games in Tokio in 1964, has made the paraplegic socially ‘respectable’.
The last 10 years in particular have brought much progress in the rehabilitation of the paraplegic. The workmens' compensation hospitals have played a leading part, but beyond this these new ideas have now been accepted by all concerned, including patients themselves. This is proved by the opening of new centres, by the increase in the numbers of paraplegics at work and in sport, and by numerous professional meetings devoted to the subject. Organisations for the disabled have also played their part.
All this would not have happened without Ludwig Guttmann. In Germany, too, he is the ‘father’ of the paraplegic and his name is known to all. May his drive remain the stimulus for improving the fate of the paraplegic in the future as it has been in the past.
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References
Meinecke, F W (1964). Int. J. Paraplegia, 2, 163.
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Meinecke, F. The rehabilitation of paraplegics and tetraplegics in West Germany. Spinal Cord 7, 206–208 (1969). https://doi.org/10.1038/sc.1969.33
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sc.1969.33
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