G Martoy¹, G Pereyra de Souza de la Vega²
¹Centro de Rehabilitacion , Psychology, Montevideo, Uruguay; ²Centro Rehabilitacion , Low Vision, Montevideo, Uruguay
Our labour as blind and low vision adolescents and adults rehabilitators, at Centro Tiburcio Cachon , from two different and complementary roles,-psychologist and teacher- has motivated us to observe and describe minutely the Diabetic Retinopathy cases. After that, we reached the conclusion that they are a particular collective with sui generis characteristics very different from the other clients.
Our research was performed between the years 1990-2000. Over a population of 277 individuals who came to the center ,46, conforming the 16% of the total ,were Diabetic Retinopathy sufferers.That seems to be not a high incidence. Nevertheless, it was only reached by Myopia in this period of time.
As a human being is a bio-psyco-social entity, thus the importance to focus the topic as a whole. So that, the variables which interfere in the rehabilitation process of a Diabetic Retinopathy individual can be grouped grosso modo as follows only for methodological purposes
Biological
The diabetes in itself, its treatment, evolution and consequences.
The retinopathy, its treatment, its evolution and consequences.
Psychological
The bereavement and adaptation to a chronic disease of complex control.
The mourning and adaptation to the progressive losses (e.g. blindness, neuropathy, nephropathy, amputations)
Social
The exhaustion of the social networks.
Our paper aims at demonstrating how the interplay of these variables with its serial chain of causes-effects which feedback each other, interfere and obstruct the rehabilitation as a dynamic, continuous and integral process.
Return to the ISLRR.ORG Home Page
