Disability

Disability

Disabled people are eligible for various services that can help them in their everyday lives. This section describes the number of eligible people and the costs involved - distributed on services for children and for adults.

Services for adults with reduced physical or mental functional capacity generally target people who suffer from mental or physical diseases that make their daily lives difficult and hinder them in maintaining themselves.

Parents of disabled children are eligible for compensation for lost wages and allowance for additional expenses related to maintaining children with reduced physical or mental functional capacity in the home.

Disabled adults

Services for adults with reduced physical or mental functional capacity generally target people who suffer from mental or physical diseases that make their daily lives difficult and hinder them in maintaining themselves.

Number of people with physical or mental functional capacity

Denmark cannot state the precise number of people with reduced physical or mental functional capacity. People are not registered according to functional capacity, and it is impossible to make a clear-cut definition of when a person has reduced functional capacity. Does a person belong to, e.g., the group of people with reduced functional capacity if he or she wears glasses, uses a hearing aid or a wheelchair? However, figures exist for the number of people receiving specific social services. In week 10 of every year, Denmark registers the number of people eligible for social services such as residential accommodation, escort schemes and activity services.  In 2006, for example, 15,093 people with reduced mental or physical functional capacity were referred to long-term or temporary residential accommodation.   

Services to disabled children

The costs for compensation for lost wages and additional costs for maintaining children with reduced physical or mental functional capacity in the home increased from DKK 1,565m i 2001 til 2,052m i 2007. The increase corresponds to an average annual rise of 4.4% in constant prices.   

The costs for compensation for lost wages and additional costs for maintaining children with reduced physical or mental functional capacity in the home (2009 prices)