BENEFITS AND CHALLENGES OF A REHABILITATION CENTRE

Abstract

Congenital abnormalities have been one of the major causes of infant and childhood deaths. Some of the children who survive also suffer from chronic illness and disabilities. This calls for training to help these children live normal lives. The importance of social rehabilitation in such children or persons must not be overlooked, since this is one of the major ways to help them cope, adjust to activities of daily living (ADLs) and turn them into successful individuals. The study was conducted at the Edwenase Rehabilitation Centre. The data collection instrument was a questionnaire structured in English and made up of both open and closed-ended questions. The main objectives of the questionnaire were to find out about the benefits and challenges of the rehabilitation centre and how the trained disabled individuals can become an asset to the human resource of the country, through social rehabilitation. The collected data was analyzed with SPSS 17-0 and presented using frequency and bar charts. The research revealed that disabled individuals can be trained to live a more independent life if they go through successful social rehabilitation. The research also revealed that the rehabilitation centre had a major challenge with financial support from the government and had inadequate tools and equipment to allow a free course of the training. In addition, the research showed that individuals disabled due to a congenital cause were mostly abandoned and had less support from family than those who acquired their disability through other factors that occur later in their lives.