“We take rehabilitation to also mean inclusion.”

Ms Mauchle, how was your trip to ETH today?

Thea Mauchle: I came by “bike” – that is, my wheelchair tractor. Unfortunately, not every tram and stop is wheelchair-accessible, so I have to plan my route carefully before I leave. The same goes for the location of ramps and big lifts here in ETH’s main building. I always leave myself plenty of time to get places.

So a good wheelchair alone is not enough?

Robert Riener: It takes a lot more than that. It takes barrier-free buildings; it takes good signage. Technology can help, of course – for example, an app for buildings that shows the best route for wheelchairs. Or a wheelchair that can climb stairs like the one developed by the ETH spin-off Scewo. The combination of barrier-free access and technology can offer many solutions.

Professor Leunig, what’s your take on this situation as a physician?

Michael Leunig: There are many aspects I simply don’t experience directly in my day-to-day work at an acute hospital like Schulthess Klinik. Thanks to the development of minimally invasive techniques, we’ve now reached a point where patients often go home a few days after surgery.

But the Schulthess Foundation is very much involved in ETH’s Rehab Initiative.

Leunig: The goal of the initiative is to improve the quality of life for people with disabilities, and the Schulthess Foundation is very committed to this. Although we focus on acute care in our clinic, we’re well aware that the rehabilitation phase that follows is extremely important. For example, we want to find out how to prevent sarcopenia, the loss of muscle strength in old age. Defining the term rehab as broadly as possible makes sense in view of our ageing society.

Riener: In the Rehab Initiative, we’ve adopted a very broad definition of rehabilitation that includes the entire process from the end of the acute phase through various stages of rehabilitation and on to everyday support for people with disabilities. We take rehabilitation to also mean integration in everyday life and inclusion in society.

The Schulthess Foundation is funding a professorship in data science. Why?

Leunig: If we collect data about the limits of patients’ capabilities, we can invest in measures that are much more targeted. We’ve been following this approach in orthopaedics for some time and are now applying it to smaller studies in physiotherapy. We need data science to extend these capabilities to large data sets.

Riener: The Schulthess Klinik already has a large data set based on tracking patient histories in everyday life over years following clinical treatment of their hips, knees or back. This knowledge can serve to optimise treatment and in the best case even avert diseases – in other words, we can improve prevention. And technology can be adapted to better meet the actual needs of people with disabilities.

#News | https://sciencespies.com/news/we-take-rehabilitation-to-also-mean-inclusion/