A study conducted by Fundación ONCE with the European Social Fund has been published and identified that 72.64% of people with ABI experience difficulty with returning to work due to their disability.

The report was presented in December 2016. The study involved collating data from Spanish people with ABI and included 400 questionnaries, 24 interviews  and 3 focus groups.  The following was discovered:

• 42.8% retired because of ABI.
• 23% are looking for a job.
• 13.5% currently work.

*Currently 80,224 people in Spain live with ABI at the time of their working life.

Age was found to be a distinguishing factor with those returning to work: 61.97% of people with ABI were active between age 16 and 32, compared to only 14.56% of people aged 50+ who worked or were actively looking for a job.

It is clear that for those who suffer from a brain injury, the road back into employment is precarious. Rehabilitiation is essential as well as processes focused on assisting individuals with ABI to get back into work.

FEDACE proposed some of the following solutions to address this matter:

• Focus on work placement rehabilitation as soon as possible (during the first 8 weeks after the brain injury) to help prepare the individual to return to work, providing any support that they may need.
• Prioritise reintegrating the person into their previous job role, before exploring alternative employment options.
• Put controls in place with businesses to reduce the number of individuals unable to return to their job after an ABI.
• Assess the job requirements and make adaptations as needed in order for those with ABI to fulfil their responsibilities.

The full report is available on fedace.org.

Report presentation last december. From left to right: José Luis Donoso (Fundación ONCE General Manager); Carmen Balfagón (IMSERSO General Manager), Inmaculada Pastor (CEADAC Director), Luciano Fernández (FEDACE’s president).

References:

https://fedace.org/estudio_empleo_dano_cerebral.html

https://fedace.org/index.php?V_dir=MSC&V_mod=shownews&V_idmod=62&idn=1558

Top picture: Presentation at CEADAC.