Abstract
In the late 1990s, people with impairments in higher-level cognitive functions due to disorders, such as traumatic brain injury and cerebrovascular disease, and their families started to make complaints that they were not be covered by any of the supporting frameworks in Japan. To appropriately respond to these complaints, the Minisitry of Health, Labor and Welfare launched a "five-year model project for supporting persons with higher brain dysfunctions" in fiscal 2001 as a 5-year plan, clearly defined impairments as organic mental disorders, and formulated operational diagnostic criteria to distinguish them from endogenous psychosis and degenerative disorders. In addition, the Ministry developed a medical training program and support program for social rehabilitation that serve as standard programs. Furthermore, the Ministry recommended measures to build support networks that take into account the geographical conditions and social resources by prefecture to meet varied local circumstances. The core recommendation was to establish a local support base organization in each prefecture and have support coordinators deployed at these bases. This model project ended in fiscal 2005. The project was then succeeded by a higher brain dysfunction support promotion project, as part of a local life support project in accordance with enactment of the Support for the Independence of Persons with Disabilities Act to become a general project conducted throughout Japan.
