[Occupational rehabilitation of psychiatrically handicapped patients in Leningrad, USSR: a visit to the Bechterew Psychoneurologic Institute].

With reference to a recent reader on rehabilitation for the chronically mentally ill in the German Democratic Republic and the USSR the authors travelled to Leningrad, USSR, to learn about the efforts to integrate rather than add up multidisciplinary approaches to work rehabilitation. The authors found a sheltered workshop for about 400 patients where much of the principles of work rehabilitation obviously work: flexible and manyfold work, well adapted to the varying standards of the patients both unskilled workers and patients with academic background. The workshop being one branch of the nationally significant Bechterev Institute for Psychiatry and Neurology also transfers patients to the general workforce where rehabilitation patients are paid a 125% salary. Both the optimistic atmosphere and the economically self supporting shop give good reason to learn more about rehabilitation for the chronically ill in the USSR and the efforts to progress.