Biopsychosocial Model of Care in Spinal Cord Injury
2 Princess Royal Spinal Injuries Unit Northern General Hospital Sheffield U.K
3 Princess Royal Spinal Injuries Unit Northern General Hospital Sheffield U.K.
In his second lecture Mr. Ravichandran stated, “the reality of medicine is that much of it is still an ephemeral art and most of it encompasses the psyche of its users as much as their physical beings. While we continue to treat patients as mechanical contraptions we will perpetuate the vicious circle of ignoring their underlying social and psychological problems and feeding their expectations in a manner bound to pressurise any health service”1. He presented four case reports where patients reported a variety of symptoms for several years after acute traumatic spinal cord injury. The individual symptoms were dealt with, initially as a clinical condition. When the symptoms reoccurred or alternative symptoms without obvious underlying cause re-emerged, clinical suspicion as to the underlying cause changed from a biological model to a psychosocial model.
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