Current state of vocationally oriented medical rehabilitation – a German perspective

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to outline a current trend in inpatient medical rehabilitation in Germany, i.e. vocationally oriented medical rehabilitation (VOMR). Since employment-related demands and challenges pose a potential source of strain regarding employees' health and work ability, rehabilitative treatment in Germany is increasingly geared towards including work-related issues in diagnostics and therapy. To date, German rehabilitation research and practice have focussed primarily on the development of screening instruments for identifying vocational problems, interface management and inter-sectoral cooperation and the specification and standardisation of vocationally oriented interventions and programmes (e.g. work hardening, group interventions). Further developments in VOMR should examine the varying needs of patients for work-related interventions as well as the neglect of specific subgroups of patients (e.g. long-term unemployed) and topics (e.g. interference between work and other life domains).