[Perspectives in rehabilitation. General position paper on future trends and challenges in rehabilitation by the Health Advisory Board of the German Federal Association for Rehabilitation].

The Health Advisory Board of the German Federal Association for Rehabilitation (BAR) describes future trends and challenges in rehabilitation as deriving from the socio-demographic development in Germany and the structural characteristics of its Social and Health Care Insurance System. The focus is on elder employees to sustain and regenerate their capacity for employment, on people which are no longer employed to activate their autonomy and ability for self-support, and on rehabilitation as a holistic and integrative process extending through the social security and health insurances. There is an urgent need and a real chance to benefit from already existing scientific findings more frequently and to integrate them effectively into adequate further education and training programmes for professionals.

[Health, social, societal and organizational political effects of the implementation of the ICF on integrated rehabilitation--a vision of the conversion and its consequences].

Fundamental joint principles on expert opinions according to the social law code no. IX (SGB IX) and their application to a virtual individual case history were published recently in this journal. They are based on the ICF (International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health, WHO 2001).

[Aspects of expertise which are jointly valid for German sociomedicine and statutory health care].

A project group of the Medical Advisory Board of the German Federal Rehabilitation Council (BAR) developed fundamental joint principles on experts' opinions according to the social law code no. IX (SGB IX). The principles aim at medical experts working in different social organisations and statutory health care insurance.

[Aspects of expertising which are jointly valid for German sociomedicine and statutory health care].

A project group of the Medical Advisory Board of the German Federal Rehabilitation Council (BAR) developed fundamental joint principles on experts' opinions according to the social law code no. IX (SGB IX). The principles aim at medical experts working in different social organisations and statutory health care insurances.

[100 years physical therapy and rehabilitation].

Physical medicine and rehabilitation received powerful impulses from orthopaedic surgery, which organizes its pragmatic and scientific interests since 100 years in its own association. A point of breakthrough was reached at the beginning of the 20th century, when progress in surgical and conservative orthopaedics enabled a comprehensive rehabilitation of physically disabled. On the other hand, the professionalisation of care for the handicapped (Krüppelfürsorge) has decisively supported the advancement of orthopaedics.