ABSTRACT
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Rehabilitation ergonomics is a young discipline. First proposed in 1979 informally in the literature, rehabilitation ergonomics needs to grow signifi cantly. While the principles of rehabilitation ergonomics may remain stable, undergoing little change, its practice may vary signifi cantly over time. The factor that will be largely responsible for this variation is technology and its evolution. Rehabilitation will continue to concern itself with the restoration of form and function of the human as close to normal as possible. This will be partly achieved by treatment and partly by assistance to the patient. Though the delivery of the treatment may also be modifi able for optimization through ergonomic intervention, it is the external assistance to patients to regain their function that will have the maximal potential of being benefi ted by incorporation of ergonomics. We have reached a state of development in the fi elds of rehabilitation and technology that the latter can have a profound effect on the former. However, marriage between these two concepts is not very old. This chapter deals entirely with the theoretical and conceptual aspects of rehabilitation ergonomics, which have been proposed in several publications by Kumar (1989, 1992, 1995) and Davies and Kumar (1996).
