Medical model of disability

The medical model of disability or the medical view of disability is a socio-political approach in which illness or “ disability ” is the result of physical conditions, inseparable from the person (it is part of one's own body) can reduce the individual quality of life and significant disadvantages for those affected.

Another perspective describes the “ social model of disability ”.

The most recent ICF classification ( International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health ) of the World Health Organization (WHO) defines "disability" as a result of interactions between people and their environment and does not see disability as a medical or biological malfunction:

"The ICF concept of disability is the generic term for any impairment of the ability of a person to function. It is therefore more comprehensive than the [German] concept of disability in SGB IX [ Social Code IX ]. In order to avoid misunderstandings, only the term disability from SGB IX should be used in the social area in Germany. "

The “medical model of disability” is now explicitly referred to as such because of the high degree to which medical approaches such as surgery , orthotics and clinical physiotherapy are emphasized and are favored as the path to the greatest possible “normalization” of a disabled person's participation in society . When it is referred to as the "medical model" rather than just the standard model of disability (as it once was), it is usually intended to contrast with an opposing model, the "social model of disability".

From a medical point of view , one tends to assume that "healing" or at least "management" of illness or disability is about the predominant or complete identification of the disease or disability from a detailed clinical perspective (in the sense of scientific understanding by trained health professionals) and about understanding illness or disability, learning to control them and / or changing their course.

In a broader sense, the medical model also believes that compassionate or simply society invests resources in health care and related services in an attempt to medically cure the disability in order to expand functionality and / or improve function and thereby become disabled Enable people to lead a normal life. Central importance is attached to the responsibility and potential of medical professionals in this area.

Disabled rights advocates , who tend to prefer the social model to the medical model of disability , often refer to the medical model as the basis for undesirable social degradation of people with disabilities; furthermore, they see resources as being excessively misdirected with almost exclusively medical focus, as the same resources could be used for things like universal design and inclusion measures.

This includes the monetary and societal costs as well as the benefits of the various interventions, whether medical, surgical, social or professional, from prosthetics to drug and other remedies and medical tests such as genetic screening or pre-implantation diagnostics .

Often times, a medical model of disability is used to justify large investments, technology and research. If the environment of the disabled person were to be adapted, this could ultimately be more favorable, both for society as a whole, as well as more cost-effective and more practicable.

Furthermore, some disability rights groups see the medical model of disability as a civil rights issue and criticize charitable or medical initiatives that use it in their portrayal of disabled people because it promotes a pitiful, essentially negative, mostly powerless image of people with disabilities rather than disability to be accepted as a political, social and ecological problem (see also the political slogan “ Piss on Pity ” - “Piss on pity”).

Various sociologists (Zola, Parsons) examined the socio-cultural aspects of "normality" and their pressure to adapt.