Disabled Clients

Disability issues have increasingly become a subject for discussion in the last few decades. In this article, the term disabled clients refers to people who access services within a variety of health and social care organizations and come into contact with a diverse range of staff at different points in their lives.

Critical to this discussion of disabled clients are a definition of disability and an understanding of the three key models of disability, namely the medical model, the social model, and the International Classification of Functioning Disability and Health (ICF). Further, a discussion of the potential impact of having a disability is explored, and key developments such as technological changes, media coverage of disability, and development of equality legislation and health promotion are examined in relation to their impact on disabled clients. The discussion concludes with some suggestions for the future to improve the lives of disabled clients. At this point, however, it is critically important to examine the complex and diverse nature of disability, as any narrow understanding of the issue may be limiting at best and may overlook the diversity within disability.