I worked in Vocational rehab in Australila for many years. Like Cadeyrn Hercule's experience in the US at the time our service was run by the federal Government and was there to assist people who were unemployed due to the effects of a disability to get work. The service was an outpatient type servece. We worked in a multidisciplinary team which included:

* Rehab Physician who gave a detailed medical assessment on admission
* Physios who would provide physical assessments and functional capacity evaluations to determine how physically capable the client was in relation the physical demands of duties
* OTs who would also provide functional capacity evaluations and such things as assessments of activities of daily living with the view to providing aides and methods to successfully completing activities
* The physios and OTs would often do workplace assessments to determine if the physical aspects of the duties were appropriate
rehabilitation counsellors - who conducted vocational assessments that would look at qualifications, work experience and matching up potential with the physical and functional capabilities of the client

We would offer clients physical programmes to improve the fitness for work and assist them in job seeking skills.

In addition to these various roles most of us would be responsible for assisting the client find appropriate walk and monitor their first few weeks/months in a job.


Vocational rehab was a bit different from occupational rehab because people were out of work for an extended period of time - may be years of unemployment. We found it quite rewarding work although we would only get 70-75% back to work.

As a physio working in the area you need to draw on a wide range of skills and you need to undergo some special training. For example:

* Physical assesmments needed to be thorough with good quantitative measures eg dynamometry
functional capacity evaluations - best to train in an available package under a highly experience clinician. Unfortunately these packages often cost quite a lot. Make sure that the package is properly researched for reliability and validity.
* Exercise science - essential for baseline assessments and for physical activity programmes.
* applied ergonmics - for work place assessment and for disability ergomomics.
* Knowing something about how to motivate people. We found motivational interviewing could be very effective in improving adherence to our programmes and to ultimate success.

Have you got access to the occupational rehab journals (eg Occupational Rehabilitation and Work) and other rehab journals such as Disability & Rehabilitation and Clinical rehabilitation - I find them good sources for information.

I think you would find that vocational rehabilitation would vary in practice around the world and that culture and system of government would have a lot to do with how it is organised.