Medical model of disability

The medical model of disability understands disability chiefly as an individual impairment or health condition to be diagnosed, treated, or rehabilitated. It locates the main problem in the person's body or mind rather than in social barriers.

Social model of disability: A framework that locates disability primarily in social barriers and exclusion rather than individual impairment. It shifts attention from treating a person's impairment to removing disabling barriers.
Medicalization: The process by which human experiences or conditions become defined and managed as medical problems. It describes how disability can be framed as a condition requiring clinical attention.
History of medicine: The study of how medical knowledge, institutions, and practices have changed over time. Medical understandings of disability developed within changing systems of diagnosis and care.
Ableism: Discrimination and social prejudice against disabled people, often grounded in assumptions about normal ability. Treating nondisabled functioning as the standard can reinforce ableist judgments.
Biopsychosocial model: A framework that explains health and disability through interacting biological, psychological, and social factors. It combines bodily conditions with personal and environmental influences.
Diagnosis: The identification of a disease or condition from signs, symptoms, and clinical evidence. Diagnosis names impairments and can determine which treatments or services are offered.
Eugenics: A discredited movement that sought to shape human populations through selective reproduction and social control. Its history exposes how medical classification of impairment could support coercive policies.
Informed consent: A person's voluntary agreement to an intervention after receiving relevant information about it. Treatment-centered approaches raise questions about who controls decisions involving disabled bodies.
Human rights model of disability: A framework that treats disabled people as rights-holders and disability as an equality and justice issue. It replaces a treatment-centered emphasis with enforceable rights and equal participation.
Rehabilitation: Measures that help people restore, maintain, or develop abilities and participation after illness or injury. It is a central intervention when disability is framed as requiring functional improvement.

Linked from 21 pages