How Do You Handle Students Who Have Missed Many Classes Due To Illness?

I just got an email asking what I would suggest college teachers do to help students missing long periods of time from school due to sickness.

My first thought is that if the student has missed a number of classes, they probably haven't learned much about the subject matter. My response would be to suggest they drop the class to concentrate on getting healthy and take it again when they are feeling better. Another possibility would be to take an incomplete for the course and complete the work at a later date.

However, obviously this depends on the subject matter. I teach management courses where being in the classroom is important in order to participate in various experiential exercises and cases. In other subjects, it might be possible for the student to read the book and other course materials and do makeup work and exams.

I would be interested in hearing how others would handle this situation...