Implications for Physical Therapy Research
The development of the ICF framework is an important
advance that can contribute to the field of physical
therapy and rehabilitation. One of the most exciting
aspects of the ICF framework is that it has the potential
to provide a universal, standardized disablement language
and framework that looks beyond mortality and
disease to focus on how people live with their conditions.
The ICF framework, if widely adopted, could promote a
common, international language that has the potential
to facilitate communication and scholarly discourse across
disciplines as well as across national boundaries, to stimulate
interdisciplinary research, to improve clinical care, and
ultimately to better inform health policy and management.
38 Unlike the ICIDH, the ICF was endorsed in May
2001 by the World Health Assembly as a member of the
WHO family of international classifications