Authors: Ali Amer AlMushawwah

Abstract

Background: Retirement of individuals with disabilities has a potential impact on workers. Vocational rehabilitation (VR) programs are designed to rehabilitate subjects with physical disabilities to adapt to their new conditions to return or find employment following a disabling injury.

Aim: To identify the reintegration of disabled patients to their previous occupation following a VR program.

Methods: This was a retrospective case series that was conducted at-------between the period from-------to-------. The study was conducted on individuals admitted to the medical rehabilitation center and who completed their rehabilitation program. The data of the patients were collected using a pre-designed data collection sheet.

Results: A total of 12 cases were recruited; males were 66.7% of the total sample. Cerebral palsy was the main primary diagnosis of patients (33.3%). There was a significant difference between FIM score at admission and discharge (P=0.002). There were 66.7% reintegrated to their previous occupation. There were 75% employed before admission and 8.3% employed at follow-up.

Conclusion: The vocational rehabilitation program was effective in improving functional independence scores and reintegration of individuals with disabilities. However, successful employment of patients was very low.

Keywords: VR program, outcomes, reintegration, employment.