Notes on evaluating the ecology of rehabilitation praxis

Abstract

Rehabilitation services are typically regarded as an intervention, delivered by a professional service provider, designed to achieve the outcome of functional improvement in the life of the client or patient The primary evaluation question is whether that intervention is an effective and efficient means to the given end of functional improvement I suggest an alternative way of thinking of both rehabilitation and evaluation: The phrase ‘ecology of rehabilitation praxis’ is used to emphasize that rehabilitation is a matter of a situated, lived, technical, moral, and political interaction of people with their environment, with each other, and with the artifacts of their environment Three conceptual tools are discussed for understanding the ecology of rehabilitation praxis: community‐based practice philosophy, community of practice, and the discursive nature of a practice. When rehabilitation is conceived as ecology, and not simply a treatment, then a different way of thinking about evaluation is required.