Joav Merrick 
Disability, Chronic Disease and Human Development 

Disability is part of human life and most of us will, at some time during our lifetime, experience an impairment or difficulty in our functioning, either by disease or in our old age. Once upon a time, disability in a person resulted in many kinds of disadvantages and shunning from society as a whole, but in our time society has changed attitudes toward this part of our population. The idea today is to transform a disability into an ability and to support and help this population in any way possible via treatment, interventions or new technology to make a better quality of life and an optimal functioning, despite the disability or chronic disease. Chronic disease for example is a long lasting condition that can be somehow controlled, but not cured. This lifespan approach to chronic diseases was the topic of the Gerry Schwartz and Heather Reisman 4th International Conference on Pediatric Chronic Diseases, Disability and Human Development held in Jerusalem, Israel during January 21-23, 2015 and in this book you will find the abstracts from the conference.