Nursing

There are two distinct models of disability that seek to empower those with disabilities- the medical model and the social model. The medical model refers to a disability as a “physical or mental impairment of the individual and its person with social consequences. It regards the limitations faced by people with disabilities as resulting primarily, or solely, from their impairments” Wasserman et al (2011). Under the medical model people are defined by their illness or medical condition. The medical model sees people with disabilities as dependant and in need of medical treatment in order to be cured. The medical model is often referred to as the individual model as it believes that the individual must adapt to conform to their social and physical surrounding.
The social model of disability is “a reaction to the dominant medical model of disability which in itself is a functional analysis of the body as machine to be fixed in order to conform with normative values” Paley, J. (2002). The social model is a framework of information that focuses on changes required of society to achieve equality for people with disabilities. The area identified as requiring work are attitudes, social support, information, physical structures and flexibility at work. The social model also reverses the role of the individual and society seeing society as the problem and not the individual. According to the Union of the Physically Impaired against Segregation "it is society which disables physically impaired people. Disability is something imposed on top of our impairments by the way we are unnecessarily isolated and excluded from full participation in society" (UPIAS) 1975.
The phrase social model was derived from philosophical and conceptual developments surroundings the subject and was coined in 1983 by disabled lecturer Mike Oliver. The social model revolutionized perceptions of people with disabilities. It gained the support of people with disabilities and many human rights