Rehabilitation activities belong to tertiary prevention. The latter includes all measures that aim at avoiding the progression of a physical disability to a handicap, or those that diminish the extent of the handicap. Complex rehabilitation programs represent a cooperation of medical, occupational, and social reintegration. The pertinent state of the art and the unsolved problems are reviewed in this work. In this context, special emphasis is placed on the appropriate division of tasks among rheumatology specialists and general practitioners, as well as others working in the rehabilitation field. In the present decade, worldwide, the need for expanded complex rehabilitation programs will increase markedly.

Activities of Daily Living↗

PubMedDate not supplied

[Facets of control of rheumatic diseases in East Germany].

Guidelines for treating rheumatic diseases in the GDR are formulated based on the sociomedical and economic impact of class XIII (International Classification of Diseases, Injuries and Causes of Death (ICD) of WHO, 9th revision: 1975); these consider trends in temporary incapacity of employees and their utilization of hospital services, as well as statistics of disability pensions. The presentation of the organized cure and care programs, with special emphasis on rheumatology practitioners is followed by a discussion of issues in graduate, postgraduate, and continuing rheumatological education. Finally, a cursory review is given of the priorities and tasks of rheumatology research in the GDR.

Arthritis, Rheumatoid↗

PubMedDate not supplied

[Epidemiologic aspects of disability caused by rheumatic diseases in the Gera district, East Germany].

In the period 1968-1977, the mean annual invalidization rates due to rheumatic diseases in the district of Gera are 36.6 for the female insured population, 19.3 for the male one, per 10(5) persons. After the age of 40, invalidization rates are rising steeply. Degenerative arthropathies (osteoarthroses and displacements of the intervertebral disk or vertebrogenic pain syndromes) constitute more than four fifths of all first-time invalidizations. First-time invalidization was done, on average, 7 years before reaching the age-limit provided by law for old-age pension, in one third temporally limited. The longitudinal monitoring of the invalidzation rates supports the hypothesis that clinical manifestations of degenerative arthropathies are increasing.

Adult↗