The Glossary is a work in progress and might have to be extended in the future or changed depending on science and technology and societal developments Version June 2010
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Glossary for the 21st Century a starting point by Dr. Gregor Wolbring |
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Term |
Definition |
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Disability |
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If one hears the term disability or disabled person or people with a disability… often two different aspects are covered by the term disability a) its used to used to label the body and its functioning as deficient as impaired as non normative as sub normative based on species typical expectations and b) its used to describe the social environmental parameter a person with a certain body functioning faces. I do believe it is better to use different terms for the two areas of body image and social reality. This is reflected in the definitions below. Also as disability is used in these two orders 'disabled person' or 'person with a disability' within the context of this glossary the order is irrelevant as both orders have the same interpretation of the term disability they use. So I do not adhere here to one or the other order. |
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Medical model of Disability |
People disabled by their body-structure related sub species-typical functioning |
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Social model of disability |
People disabled by the attitudinal and environmental barriers they experience due to their body-structure related sub species-typical functioning that hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others |
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Transhumanized medical model of disability |
People disabled by their body structure related -'as impaired labelled'- sub species-typical and species-typical functioning (everyone not performing beyond species-typical functioning). |
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Transhumanized social model of disability |
People disabled by the attitudinal and environmental barriers they experience due to their body-structure related sub species-typical and species-typical functioning that hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others |
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The body image |
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Impairment/medical deficiency model of the body/body image |
A body that is labelled to function sub species-typical |
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Transhumanized version of Impairment/medical deficiency model of the body/body image |
A body that is labelled to function sub species-typical and species-typical |
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Vari-ability/ non medical/non deficiency model of the body/body image |
A vari-ability in bodily functioning that differs from the species-typical norm but does not exceed the species-typical norm and is seen as a variation and not a deviation |
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Transhumanized understanding of Variability/ non medical/non deficiency model of the body/body image |
A vari-ability in bodily functioning that exceed the species-typical norm and is seen as a variation and not a deviation |
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The person (the definitions here take
into account that there are two discourses around the person namely the labelling
of the body and the treatment of the person) |
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Disabled person |
Everyone who encounters body structure/function related attitudinal and environmental barriers that hinders one’s full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others, |
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Person with a Disability |
Everyone who encounters body structure/function related attitudinal and environmental barriers that hinders one’s full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others, |
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Impaired person/Person with an Impairment |
Everyone who identifies oneself as having a subnormative functioning, deficient body based on a species-typical norm. |
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Vari-abled person/ Person with a vari-abled Body |
Everyone who identifies oneself as having a vari-ability in bodily functioning that differs from the species-typical norm but does not exceed the species typical norm. |
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Vari-abled and disabled person |
Everyone who identifies oneself as having a vari-ability in bodily functioning that differs from the species typical norm and who encounters body structure/function related, ableism related attitudinal and environmental barriers that hinder one’s full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others. |
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Impaired and disabled person |
Everyone who identifies oneself as having subnormative, deficient bodily functioning based on a species-typical norm and who encounters body structure/function related, ableism related attitudinal and environmental barriers that hinder one’s full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others. |
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Transhumanized impaired person (techno poor impaired person) |
Everyone who identifies oneself as being deficient because one is not able to improve oneself beyond Homo sapiens normative functioning whether through a) external means by shaping the environment, or b) internal means by modifying ones bodily structures. |
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Transhumanized disabled person |
Everyone who is not enhanced beyond Homo sapiens normative functioning whether through a) external means by shaping the environment, or b) internal means by modifying ones bodily structures and who encounters body structure/function related attitudinal and environmental barriers mostly justified by a transhumanized version of ableism that hinder one’s full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others. |
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Transhumanized impaired and disabled person (techno poor impaired and disabled person) |
Everyone who identifies oneself as being deficient because one is not able to improve oneself beyond Homo sapiens normative functioning whether through a) external means by shaping the environment, or b) internal means by modifying ones bodily structures and who encounters attitudinal and environmental barriers mostly justified by a transhumanized version of ableism that hinder one’s full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others, |
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Transhumanized vari-abled person |
Everyone who identifies oneself as having a beyond species-typical functioning variability in bodily functioning that differs from the species-typical norm. This could be achieved by a) external means by shaping the environment, or b) internal means by modifying ones bodily structures |
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Transhumanized vari-abled and disabled person |
Everyone
who identifies
oneself as having a beyond
species-typical functioning variability in bodily functioning that differs
from the species-typical norm and was achieved through a) external means by
shaping the environment, or b) internal means by modifying ones bodily
structures and who therefore encounters attitudinal and environmental
barriers mostly justified by an Anti-transhumanized
version of ableism that hinder one’s full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others. |
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Examples
of different combination of body image/image of the person and concept of
disability |
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Social model of disability, medical model of the person; impaired disabled person |
disability results from the interaction between persons with impairments (sub-species typical functioning) and attitudinal and environmental barriers that hinders their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others, |
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Social model of disability, neutral model of the person |
results from the interaction between a person with a given body structure related functioning and attitudinal and environmental barriers persons face due to their body structure related functioning that hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others, |
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Social
model of disability, social model of the person; vari-abled
disabled person |
results from the interaction between a person with a variation in body structure related functioning and attitudinal and environmental barriers persons face due to their variation in body structure related functioning that hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others, |
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Social model of disability, transhumanist model of the person; transhuman impaired person |
disability results from the interaction between persons with impairments (species-typical and sub species-typical functioning) and attitudinal and environmental barriers that hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others, |
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Ableism |
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Ableism |
The term ableism evolved
from the civil rights movements in the United States and Britain during the
1960s and 1970s (1) to question and highlight
the prejudice and discrimination persons experienced whose body structure and
ability functioning was labelled as ‘impaired’ as sub species-typical. Ableism of this flavor is a set of beliefs, processes and practices
that favors species-typical normative body structure based abilities and
labels subnormative species-typical biological
structures as deficient, as not able to perform as required, as being in need
of fixing, as a diminished state of being. The disabled people rights
discourse and scholars of the academic field of disability studies (2)
questions the assumption of deficiency intrinsic to non normative body
abilities and the favoritism for normative species-typical body abilities (3;3-10). Ableism is however evident far beyond the
species-typical, sub species-typical dichotomy. Ableism is one of the most
societal entrenched and accepted “isms” and it exists in many forms such as
biological structure based ableism, cognition based ableism, ableism inherent
to a given economic system, and social structure based ableism. The ableism’s
that expects the ability a) to generate a high GDP and be productive and efficient;
b) to consume certain products and c) to be competitive are just three
examples of ableism’s outside of the
species-typical, sub species-typical dichotomy cherished by many. Every
individual, household, community, group, sector, region, country and culture cherish and promote certain abilities while viewing others
as non-essential (favoritism of abilities). Favoring certain
abilities often morphs into ableism where one not only cherishes certain
abilities but where one sees certain abilities in oneself or others as
essential and labels real or perceived deviation from or lack of these
essential abilities as problematic. Ableism
leads to an ability based and ability justified understanding of oneself, one’s
body and one’s relationship with others of one’s species, other species and
one’s environment.(11-14) Ableism often leads to disablism (15), the lack of accommodation enthusiasm for
the needs of people and other biological structures who are seen to
not have certain abilities; the unwillingness to adapt to the needs of
‘others. Ableism as such is not negative it just
highlights that one favours certain abilities and sees them as
essential. One could choose as a culture to cherish the ability to maintain
equity for ones members and members of a society could see this as positive.
However, certain ableisms have historically been used and still are used by
various social groups to justify their elevated level of rights and status in
relation to other social groups, other species and the environment (12;14;16). There
are two main versions (see (14) ) Version
One Ableism privileges ‘species-typical abilities’ while labelling ‘sub
species-typical abilities’ as deficient, as impaired and undesirable often
with the accompanying disablism the discriminatory, oppressive, or abusive
behaviour arising from the belief that sub species-typical people are
inferior to the species-typical. This version is used within the disability
studies discourse. In Version Two the claim is not about species-typical versus sub species-typical, but that one has - as a species or a social group- superior abilities compared to other species or other segments in ones species. |
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Transhumanized Form of Ableism(16-18) (generic) |
A set of beliefs, processes and practices that perceive the improvement of functioning of biological structures beyond typical boundaries as essential. The transhumanized version of ableism, sees all species typical biological structures as limited, defective and in need of constant improvement beyond biological structure typical boundaries. The transhumanized version of ableism exhibits the favouritism of beyond biological structure typical abilities and perceived biological structures as deficient as being in a diminished state of being if they are not enhanced beyond biological structure typical abilities. (1-3) |
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Transhumanized Form of Ableism (16-18) (human related) |
A
set of beliefs, processes and practices that perceive the improvement of human
body abilities beyond homo sapiens typical boundaries as essential. This transhumanized version of ableism,
sees all human bodies as limited, defective and in need of constant
improvement of their abilities beyond homo sapiens -typical boundaries. This transhumanized version of ableism exhibits the favouritism of beyond homo sapiens typical abilities and perceived humans as deficient as being in a diminished state of being human if they are not enhanced beyond homo sapiens typical abilities. (1-3). The transhumanist body ability enhancement can be of three types a) external by shaping the environment, b) internal reversal by modifying bodily structures in an reversible fashion and c) internal non-reversal by modifying bodily structures in a non-reversible fashion |
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Transhumanized Form of Ableism(16-18) (animal related) |
A set of beliefs, processes and practices which champions the especially cognitive enhancement of animal species beyond species typical boundaries leading to cognitive or otherwise ‘enabled species’. |
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Transhumanized Form of Ableism (1-3) (environment related) |
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Ability Studies (1-3) |
is the study of the usage of the term ability.
It investigates a) the social, cultural, legal, political, ethical and other
angles which influence the judgment of any given ability and which leads to
the favouritism of one ability over another b) the impact and consequence of
the favouritism of certain abilities and rejection of others c) the
consequences of ableism in its different forms and its relationship and
impact on other isms d) the impact of new and emerging technologies on
ableism and the favouritism towards certain abilities and rejection of other
abilities e) what abilities would lead to the most beneficial scenario for
the maximum amount of people in the world (1-2) Ability studies includes among others • the traditional disabled people, • the techno poor disabled, • the people who gain enhancements, • other non human targets for ability
modifications, • new life forms, and looks among others at areas such as • ableism supported prejudism’s • ableism differences between cultures • ableism driven judgement of countries • ableism and development • influence of ableism on numerous
concepts such as biological diversity, cultural diversity and culture of
peace and interpretation of documents treaties and laws
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Ableism and
Favouritism for Abilities Ethics |
Ethics of Ableism/Ableism Ethics is a
framework of standards and values that (a) guide beliefs, processes and
practices that produces based on ones abilities a particular kind of
understanding of oneself, one’s body and one’s relationship with others of
one’s species, other species and one’s environment and includes one being
judged by others; (b) guide the favouritism for certain abilities and how one
decide which abilities to favour over others; (c) guide the reactions towards
humans and other biological entities that are seen -real or perceived- to
lack these essential abilities. The study of the Ethics of Ableism/Ableism
Ethics, also includes (a) the study of those standards and values,
incorporating the perspectives of many different groups especially of the
people labelled as lacking certain ‘essential’ abilities or labelled as
exhibiting ‘as negative seen abilities’; (b) the impact assessment of
different forms of ableism onto different ethics theories and ethical
principles including health ethics theories and their use to govern science
and technology and health research, care and policy and (c) identification of
ethical actions that flow from a favouritism for certain
abilities. http://ableism.wordpress.com/ableism-glossary/ |
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Ableism an
Favouritism for Abilities Governance |
Governance of Ableism/Ableism Governance is
about how we govern ableism, the favouritism for certain abilities and the
reaction towards non favoured abilities. This field is seen as an essential
tool to help address existing and future challenges in the governance of
science and technology and many other fields such as health policy.
http://ableism.wordpress.com/ableism-glossary/ |
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Ability
security |
that one is accepted, and is able to live one’s
life with whatever set of abilities one has, and that one will not be forced
to have a prescribed set of abilities to live a secure life. (5) |
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Models (identity) and determinants (interventions) of Health |
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If one deals with models and determinants of health one in the end deals with two issues. The models of health define the client (animal human) and the cause whereby the determinants define the intervention |
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Medical model (identity, bodily reality part) of a person
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The person’s bodily reality is viewed as defective directly caused by disease, trauma or other ‘medical health conditions’ leading to a body structure, function that deviates from certain norms. The person obtains the identity label of being an impaired person/person with an impairment, a ‘patient’ with ill medical health, with subnormative functioning. (19) Within the medical model of health, health is limited to cover “medical health” and is characterized as the normative functioning of biological systems (e.g. in humans or animals) whereas disease/ illness is defined as the sub-normative functioning of biological systems. It excludes interventions in regards to social and spiritual well being which can cot directly be linked to a medical problem. (19) The ‘patient is the target of its intervention whether through cure or the prevention of the appearance. |
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Medical determinants of medical health of a patient |
place the cause of sub-normative functioning within the individual patient’s biological system leading to medical interventions towards the species typical norm on the level of the individual focusing on medical cure, medical individualistic care and individualistic normative rehabilitation as the primary endpoint and at the political level the principal response is to make curative medicine more efficient(19) |
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Social determinants/ interventions of medical health of a patient |
identify external factors as the cause for the “ill medical health” the sub-normative functioning of the individual, the patient and tries to fix the external factors to prevent medical ill health. This includes, for example, the elimination of contaminated water that leads to bacterial or parasitic infections, or job insecurity that contributes to stress and heart disease. (19) Although some social determinants interventions such as decreasing job insecurity also increase social well being, the performance indicator is a positive change in a medical parameter. |
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Medical
Health/Social determinants/ social well-being intervention of a patient |
Improve
the social well-being of the patient through social determinant interventions(19) |
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Social Health(19)
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social determinants intervention towards the social well being of a person not labeled as being in ill medical health or in danger of being medical ill(19) |
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Transhumanized health
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all Homo sapiens bodies – no matter
how conventionally “medically healthy” – are defined as limited and defective
as in ill health in need of constant improvement made possible by new technologies
appearing on the horizon (a little bit like the constant software upgrades we
do on our computers). Health in this model is the concept of having obtained
maximum (at any given time) enhancement (improvement) of one’s abilities,
functioning and body structure. (19) |
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Transhumanized medical
determinant intervention |
These interventions see enhancement beyond species-typical body structures and functioning as a therapeutic intervention (transhumanization of medicalization)(4). Enhancement medicine is the new field providing the remedy and maintenance through surgery, pharmaceuticals, implants and other intervention on the level of the body. (4) |
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Existing
understanding of Rehabilitation |
Rehabilitation is a treatment or treatments designed
to facilitate the process of recovery from injury, illness, or disease to as normal a condition as possible. The purpose of rehabilitation is to restore some or all of the patient's
physical, sensory, and mental capabilities that were lost due to injury,
illness, or disease. Rehabilitation includes assisting the patient to compensate for deficits that
cannot be reversed medically. The aim of rehabilitation, "to restore
an individual to his/her former
functional and environmental status, or alternatively, to maintain or maximize remaining function"
(Williams, 1984, p. xiii), http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Rehabilitation
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Transhumanized understanding of Rehabilitation |
Rehabilitation
is a treatment or treatments designed to facilitate the process of recovery
from injury, illness, or disease to as
optimum a condition as possible. Rehabilitation
is a treatment or treatments designed to facilitate the process of gaining a as optimum a condition as possible. The purpose of
rehabilitation is to restore some or all of the patient's physical, sensory,
and mental capabilities that were lost due to injury, illness, or disease.
Rehabilitation includes assisting the patient to compensate for deficits that cannot be reversed medically. The aim of
rehabilitation, "to restore an individual to his/her I former functional
and environmental status, or alternatively, to maintain or maximize remaining function" (Williams, 1984, p. xiii), Modified from
http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Rehabilitation |
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Reference List
(2)
Steven Taylor BSaPW. DISABILITY STUDIES:
INFORMATION AND RESOURCES. National Resource Center on Supported Living and
Choice, Center on Human Policy, School of Education, Syracuse University
2003Available from: URL: http://thechp.syr.edu/Disability_studies_2003_current.html
(3)
Carlson L. Cognitive Ableism and
Disability Studies: Feminist Reflections on the History of Mental Retardation. Hypatia 2001;16(4):124-46.
(4)
Finkelstein V. MODELLING DISABILITY.
Disability Studies Program, Leeds University, UK 1996Available from: URL: http://www.leeds.ac.uk/disability-studies/archiveuk/finkelstein/models/models.htm
(5)
Mitchell DT, Snyder SL. The Body and
Physical Difference: Discourses of Disability (The Body, In Theory: Histories
of Cultural Materialism). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; 1997.
(6)
Olyan SM. The ascription of physical disability as a stigmatizing strategy in
biblical iconic polemics . The Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 2009;9(Article
14):2-15.
(7)
Rose M. The Staff of Oedipus: Transforming
Disability in Ancient Greece. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; 2003.
(8)
Schipper J. Disability Studies and the
Hebrew Bible: Figuring Mephibosheth in the David Story. New York: Continuum;
2006.
(9)
Fiona A.K.Campbell. Inciting Legal
Fictions: 'Disability's' Date with Ontology and the Ableist Body of the Law.
Griffith Law Review 2001;10(1):42.
(10)
Overboe J. Vitalism:
Subjectivity Exceeding Racism, Sexism, and (Psychiatric) Ableism. Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational
Women's and Gender Studies 2007;4(2):23-34.
(11)
Wolbring G. Die Konvergenz der
Governance von Wissenschaft und Technik mit der Governance des
"Ableism" The convergence of science and technology governance with
the governance of Ableism. Technikfolgenabsch„tzung Theorie und Praxis
Technology Assessment-Theory and Praxis 2009;18 (2):29-36.
(12)
Wolbring G. The Politics of Ableism.
Development 2008;51(2):252-8.
(13)
Wolbring G. Ableism, Enhancement
Medicine and the techno poor disabled. In: Healey P, Rayner S, editors.
Unnatural Selection: The Challenges of Engineering Tomorrow's People.
Earthscan; 2008.
(14)
Wolbring G. "Is there an end to
out-able? Is there an end to the rat race for abilities?". Journal: Media
and Culture 2008;11(3).
(15)
Miller P, Parker S, Gillinson S. Disablism
How to tackle the last prejudice. Demos webpage 2004
(16)
Wolbring G. Why NBIC? Why human
performance enhancement?
Innovation; The European Journal of Social Science Research 2008;21(1):25-40.
(17)
Wolbring G. NBICS, other convergences,
ableism and the culture of peace. Innovationwatch com webpage 2007Available
from: URL: http://www.innovationwatch.com/choiceisyours/choiceisyours-2007-04-15.htm
(18)
Wolbring G. Ableism and NBICS.
Innovationwatch com webpage 2006Available from: URL: http://www.innovationwatch.com/choiceisyours/choiceisyours.2006.08.15.htm
(19) Wolbring
G. HTA Initiative #23 The triangle of enhancement medicine,
disabled people, and the concept of health: a new challenge for HTA, health
research, and health policy. Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical
Research, Health Technology Assessment Unit, Edmonton, Alberta Canada; 2005.