The International Classification of Functioning , Disability and Health, known more commonly as ICF, is a classification of health and health-related domains. These domains are classified from body, individual and societal perspectives by means of two lists: a list of body functions and structure, and a list of domains of activity and participation. Since an individual’s functioning and disability occurs in a context, the ICF also includes a list of environmental factors. The ICF is WHO's framework for measuring health and disability at both individual and population levels. The ICF was officially endorsed by all 191 WHO Member States in the Fifty-fourth World Health Assembly on 22 May 2001(resolution WHA 54.21). Unlike its predecessor, which was endorsed for field trail purposes only, the ICF was endorsed for use in Member States as the international standard to describe and measure health and disability. The ICF puts the notions of ‘health’ and ‘disability’ in a new light. It acknowledges that every human being can experience a decrement in health and thereby experience some degree of disability. Disability is not something that only happens to a minority of humanity. The ICF thus ‘mainstreams’ the experience of disability and recognizes it as a universal human experience. By shifting the focus from cause to impact it places all health conditions on an equal footing allowing them to be compared using a common metric – the ruler of health and disability. Furthermore ICF takes into account the social aspects of disability and does not see disability only as a 'medical' or 'biological' dysfunction. By including Contextual Factors, in which environmental factors are listed ICF allows to records the impact of the environment on the person's functioning.
This workshop will provide an overview of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF) framework, classification, and utility across disciplines and settings. Developed by the World Health Organization and endorsed by the United Nations, the ICF has increasingly been implemented in countries worldwide for special education, clinical practice, data collection, and policy determination. The ICF emphasizes the importance of functional status rather than diagnosis, and this shift has been adopted in countries as a better measure of ability/disability for eligibility and benefits determination. This workshop will explain fundamental concepts from the ICF including the bio-psychosocial model of disability. The ICF structure and coding will be explained including body functions/structures, activities and participation, and the environment. Current and potential applications of the ICF across diverse groups, clinical settings, and other areas will be discussed.Finally, participants at the end of the workshop will have the opportunity to practice using the classification and coding with cases.
She has done her training on International Classification of Functioning in the year 2010, and used ICF in clinical, research and surveys in India.
Robins Kumar is a Trustee member and Co-founder of the Dharma Foundation of India. He has done Master in Occupational Therapy with specialization in Neurology with expertise in stroke and paediatric care. He is an expert in WHO Guidelines of International Classification of Functioning. He has multiple published articles in national and international journals to his credit.