The language of percentages: ranking bodies, shaping realities, and limiting opportunities.

CONCLUSIONS: The utility of percentage logics is to describe parts of that which is full and whole, and we argue that this logic provides for specific and problematic ways of seeing and understanding impairment and disability. When scored on hierarchical scales, functional tests by necessity rank bodies and bodily functions as better or worse while precluding alternative understandings of affected function. Implications for rehabilitation Measurements expressed in numbers and percentages are used in rehabilitation by professionals to depict and convey functional capacities to patients, but this "language" also leaks into the wider context of patients' lives and understandings of themselves. The act of measurement may work to rank bodies in specific and normative ways that are unable to express difference as a valuable instance of human diversity, and may make rehabilitees question whether they are complete human beings. Medical professionals should address and take into consideration the wider consequences of the act of measurement when they provide guidance and support for patients' in their rehabilitation processes. PMID: 29034728 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Disability and Rehabilitation - Category: Rehabilitation Authors: Tags: Disabil Rehabil Source Type: research