Concise research in blind rehabilitation

Abstract

"Blindness" says Tom Drake, the Blind Principal of highland's Rehabilitation Centre at Torquay, "is a challenge which one must face bravely and expertly." One can be born brave but alas not an expert. Rehabilitation fills precisely this important role in the re-education of a blind person. It is this re-adjustment of a person with a severe disability to the sighted world that still beats its fast rhythm for a sighted audience. It is intriguing to hear of blind farmers, blind capstan lathe-operators, blind physiotherapists, yet few perhaps realize that before attaining such heights, blind people must first learn to live without sight in a world for the seeing. Professionally one may put it in very simple harsh words. "Either rehabilitate and live or crouch down and die." The Rehabilitation of the Blind is not a very simple task. It is an upward struggle most of the time. It entails fortitude, patience and a strong belief in achievement. Sometimes it can also be a vain attempt - with hardly any achievement at all. Still, the blind men a:nd women who made history are there for all of us to emulate and to hearten our belief that after all one can always accept a challenge and win. [...]