[COMMUNITY-BASED REHABILITATION: IMPORTANCE, PRINCIPLES AND ADVANCEMENT IN ISRAEL].

Abstract

Introduction: Medical rehabilitation is developing rapidly in Israel and around the world due to the aging of the population, improvement of results of medical care, and growing awareness of the importance of rehabilitation medicine. An option of comprehensive community rehabilitation treatment is also developing quickly, both in the model of replacing hospitalization and as a professional treatment after early discharge from an inpatient program. Rehabilitation in the community has many benefits, including financial, high patient satisfaction, and in some cases even more successful results of rehabilitation. The key to successful community rehabilitation lies in team cooperation and synchronization and in transferring the weight of rehabilitation from the inpatient department to rehabilitation in the community by the rehabilitation doctor as a team manager and the multi-disciplinary team. A 2018 Ministry of Health document defines home rehabilitation as "An orderly, multi-professional and vigorous program, intended for all ages, to achieve goals in rehabilitation according to a functional assessment and a rehabilitation plan, in the patient's home." In writing this article we defined two main goals. The first is to review current data, which can be found in the scientific literature on community rehabilitation. The second goal was to define the principles and systems of community rehabilitation, relevant to the State of Israel.