DATE: Tuesday, June 17, 1997                TAG: 9706170001

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B8   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Opinion

SOURCE: BY EDWARD N. BRANDT JR. 

                                            LENGTH:   77 lines

REHAB SCIENCE OPENS DOORS FOR DISABLED

Over the next two years, Congress will be reauthorizing the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The decisions made in updating this legislation could have a direct impact on your life or the lives of people you know.

One of every seven Americans has some type of disabling condition. Birth defects, learning disabilities and injuries can keep people from attending school or working. Diabetes, arthritis and other diseases can limit mobility and restrict activities. Mental disorders can deny people the chance to live productive and fulfilling lives.

The economic costs associated with disabilities are enormous. Expenditures for medical care and the indirect costs from lost productivity exceed $300 billion a year. That's more than 4 percent of the gross domestic product - a severe strain on the nation's finances.

Science and engineering have tremendous potential to ease this burden. Biomedical researchers are investigating the causes and cures of many diseases. Engineers are producing new prosthetic limbs and joints, devices that can restore sight or hearing and implantable drug-delivery systems. Social scientists are studying the best ways to integrate people into society and to provide and pay for rehabilitation services.

Why, then, do we as a nation invest so little in these areas? Congress appropriates only about $133 million a year for rehabilitation science and engineering to the major federal agencies that support this work. These appropriations amount to less than $7 annually for each person with a disabling condition. The costs of disabilities are more than 1,000 times greater per person. Boosting research would have major benefits in terms of reducing the economic and emotional toll.

Disabilities are not inherent in individuals. They arise from interactions between potentially disabling conditions and the environment. A signing deaf person in an environment where everyone signs would not be considered disabled. Someone with a spinal-cord injury need not be limited with the proper technologies, adequate personal care and suitable surroundings.

The role of the environment is critical, because it opens up a far wider range of approaches to rehabilitation than would otherwise be possible. People with vision deficits, for example, can turn either to devices like lens implants or to new guidance aids and computers that can read printed text aloud. People susceptible to back pain can be taught ways to move on their jobs or at home that can prevent recurrences.

A new field of research is taking shape around these many approaches to rehabilitation. Known as rehabilitation science and engineering, it melds knowledge from different areas of research to understand the disabling and enabling process.

The federal government can help boost this field. It should move the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research from the Department of Education - where it has always been somewhat out of place - to the Department of Health and Human Services. Renamed the Agency on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, this new government body could raise the visibility of rehabilitation science and engineering and coordinate the many related activities going on elsewhere in government.

Recognizing rehabilitation science and engineering as an emerging field of study will help stimulate innovations and technology transfer. It also will encourage students to enter the field, creating the new generation of researchers who will produce future advances.

Traditionally, the nation's biomedical-research establishment has focused on extending the lifespan. Now we need to match that focus with a commitment to increasing not only the quantity but the quality of life.

The reauthorization of the Rehabilitation Act offers the federal government an ideal opportunity to take the lead. By broadening the act to include greater support for rehabilitation science and engineering, Congress could have a dramatic influence on the lives of millions of Americans.

As former Sen. Bob Dole has said, ``Advances in rehabilitation science are essential to realizing the nation's commitment to equal opportunity, economic self-sufficiency and full participation of Americans with disabilities.'' MEMO: Edward N. Brandt Jr. is Regents Professor and director of the

Center for Health Policy at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences

Center in Oklahoma City. He recently chaired the Institute of

Medicine's Committee on Assessing Rehabilitation Science and

Engineering.

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