New Zealand's high rate of head injury, young people at risk of strokes and the anomalies in the ACC system will be discussed in Queenstown this week during the biennial Australia and New Zealand rehabilitation conference.
About 250 New Zealand and Australian specialists in rehabilitation will discuss major issues facing their treatment area, starting tomorrow.
The conference will also include the 17th annual scientific meeting of the Australasian Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine.
Auckland University of Technology (AUT) rehabilitation research centre head Prof Kathryn McPherson said older people were not the only ones at risk of having a stroke.
A stroke was thought of as "an older person's" condition, but one in four people who suffered strokes in New Zealand were under 65, she said.
Prof McPherson has carried out clinical and research work on people following a stroke or traumatic brain injury and explored rheumatoid arthritis, chronic pain and life-threatening illness.
"So people in their 50s and younger may have a stroke and so preventing this happening and helping people recover is vital.
"New Zealand also has a higher rate of head injury than many other countries in the world."
Prof McPherson said there was no firm figure on the rate of head injury.
However, estimates suggested it was between 18,000 and 26,000 a year.
"That is a lot of people.
"Our research centre at AUT has been funded to find out just how many there are."
Prof McPherson said another important health issue was that disabled people were at risk of diabetes, heart disease and other conditions, but as yet the public health focus had been on "advising non-disabled people how to limit their risk - not people with disability".
The Auckland research team had been looking into ways of addressing the situation, with findings being presented in Queenstown this week.
Prof McPherson said inter-national focus was on helping patients understand existing medications were "worth taking" rather than on inventing new drugs.
Prof McPherson said New Zealand had a "fantastic" no-fault compensation system in ACC, but people were "frequently floored" by the reality when they had a medically caused, rather than injury-related, disability.
Those people got a "fraction" in terms of care, rehabilitation and compensation compared with those covered by ACC.
