Abstract

Introduction: It is estimated that around 20% of total disabled population is locomotor disabled, out of which 57% are from rural areas. These disabilities affect their quality of life. Rehabilitation measures extended to these affected population aims at improving their quality of life and economic independence. These interventions provided at the community level rather than to individual persons, have a better outcome. Expanding Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) is the need of hour. In India, there are very few studies on CBR and Quality of Life (QOL) of locomotor disability. Our study was intended as a pilot study for CBR. This study aims to find out the effect of Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) on the quality of life of people with locomotor disabilities in Vadakkupalayam village of Cuddalore district in Tamilnadu as it can give us a sample picture for implementation of future CBR programmes.

Aim: 1. To find out the prevalence of locomotor disability in Vadakkupalayam village of Cuddalore district. 2. To find out the effectiveness of Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) on the Quality of Life (QOL) of people with locomotor disabilities in the area.

Materials and Methods: This study was conducted as Quasi Experimental Study. Secondary data was collected and survey with questionnarie was done to identify people with locomotor disabilities (52) after which rehab interventions were given. WHODAS 2.0 scale was used before and after rehab intervention and t-test was used for statistical analysis and the data was obtained.

Results: As mean WHODAS decreases, the quality of life of person with locomotor disability increases. Comparison of pre- and post- intervention WHODAS showed that there was a statistically significant difference observed t=15.084, p<0.001. It can be inferred that CBR has improved the quality of life of person affected with locomotor disability among the selected participants in this study.

Conclusion: Our study shows that Community based Rehabilitation has improved the quality of life of person affected with locomotor disability among the study population .Awareness to the public through information  booklets and mobile therapy vans will enable the  people, especially in rural areas,  to benefit from the rehabilitative measures provided by the government and non-governmental organisations.

Keywords: Locomotor disability, Community based rehabilitation, Quality of life.