2014: War and Impairment

War and Impairment:
The Social Consequences of Disablement

This year UK Disability History Month (UKDHM) examines the links between war and impairment and as a result how those who become disabled are treated. With the 100th anniversary of the start of World War One, the treatment of war disabled people casts a long shadow, with the unprecedented number of newly disabled people created by the world’s first industrial and total war. How did the self-driven activity of disabled war veterans challenge the negative way they were often treated? This negativity remains widespread around the UK and the world and is the main reason UKDHM continues to try to improve the position of disabled people in the present, by understanding what happened to us in the past.