Rehabilitation of people with visual impairments – а global systemic approach

Annotation. The purpose of the work was to conduct a retrospective analysis of the international legal and legislative framework of the WHO, the UN General Assembly on the rehabilitation of persons with visual impairment, the composition of a multidisciplinary team of highly qualified specialists, the range of necessary rehabilitation services at different levels of the health care system in different countries of the world. We analyzed more than 63 articles from scientometric databases, including Google Scholar, Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, and Science Direct, as well as regulatory documents from the WHO, the UN General Assembly, and the International Standard for Vision Rehabilitation. Additionally, we examined the activities of rehabilitation centers in the USA, Germany, and the United Kingdom concerning the rehabilitation of individuals with visual impairments, the range of rehabilitation services that should be provided, their scope, the specialists involved in multidisciplinary teams, the conditions for service delivery, and the implementation of rehabilitation measures at various levels and across different sectors. After reviewing WHO regulatory documents, scientific articles, and their full texts, 25 sources were selected. The search covered the period from 2014 to 2024. The study employed bibliosemantic analysis and content analysis methods. According to the latest WHO data, approximately 314 million people worldwide have visual impairments, of whom nearly 45 million are blind, and 246 million have reduced vision. Each year, according to WHO estimates, the number of people with visual impairments increases by 1–2 million. Children account for 43% of the total number of people with visual impairments, and among them, approximately 1.4 million are under the age of 15, according to various estimates. In 2020, as part of the «Rehabilitation 2030: A Call for Action» program, WHO published the “Rehabilitation Competency Framework”, aimed at ensuring access to high-quality rehabilitation services provided by multidisciplinary teams, tailored to the needs of each individual.