Sir,
Disability can be by birth or by tragic events in life or medical illnesses. The most important job of an orthopedic surgeon is restoration of anatomy and function as early as possible and hence minimize the disability. As a part of disability certification board, an orthopedic surgeon needs to make quantitative as well as qualitative assessment, i.e., degree and type of disability. The quantum of disability decides the amount of compensation the sufferer gets and the type of disability decides social rehabilitation. In 2018, the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, came up with new guidelines1 for disability assessment which are very descriptive. We conducted the project to convert these guidelines into an objective universal tool available as mobile application. The guidelines were first tabulated as Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. Subsequently, a flowchart was prepared to outline the workflow. Various interfaces were designed. It was also decided to build the app for android platform, as it is the most popular mobile operating system. The software developer did the coding in JAVA. The basic application along with the back-end database was put through rigorous testing to remove bugs, after which beta version was uploaded on Google Play Store [Figure 1a and b]. The authenticity of the application was validated by first using variation of hypothetical data in the app, and then same data was used for manual calculation, followed by comparison of results. Any difference in output between the app (test) and the manual calculation (control) meant an error (deviation from control) which was searched for, in a retrograde fashion and corrected. Second testing was performed using actual data from randomly selected thirty patients. The results were compared, and we found no discrepancy in the final result between the two methods.
Figure 1.
(a and b) Mobile application interfaces
The mobile application is available for free use.2 Approval has been sought from the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of India, for permitting its official use by orthopedic surgeons in medical boards. Tedious and long calculations in disability assessment and resultant errors can be weeded out with faster processing, especially in peripheral hospitals, where there is a single medical officer. Calculation excel sheet and reports can be easily archived and safely retrieved. Printing and E-mailing of reports can also be done. There are certain limitations. It focuses on locomotor, spinal, congenital, and neurological disabilities. Disabilities due to other causes such as blindness, hearing, mental illness, autism, neurological conditions, speech disorders, and blood dyscrasias will be added in later version. Furthermore, the app needs to be made available for iPhone (iOS) users.
As per census, 2.21% of Indian population, i.e., 2.68 crore persons, are differently abled. To bring about uniformity and objectivity in disability calculation, a mobile app is truly justified. This will also help in generating an online digital database for divyang population.
Financial support and sponsorship
Nil.
Conflicts of interest
There are no conflicts of interest.
References
- 1.Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of India. Guidelines for the Purpose of Assessing the Extent of Specified Disability in a Person Included under the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016. Gazette of India Notification Extraordinary No. 61. Part 2. Sec. 3. Subsec. 2. Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of India. 2018 [Google Scholar]
- 2.Orthopaedic Disability Assessment application on Google Play Store. [Last accessed on 2019 Apr 26]. Available from: http://www.bit.ly/sspgi201303 .