Vocational rehabilitation and older adults: participation and outcome

While the field of vocational rehabilitation has become increasingly focused on the goal of returning participants to competitive employment, it is not clear that the nearly 10% of participants aged 55 and older desire this goal. Archival data for 27,799 adults entering the Veterans Health Administration's Compensated Work Therapy program between 1994 and 2000 were analyzed. Nine percent of participants were over the age of 55 and the annual percentage increased each year since 1994. Older participants were less likely to be participating in order to obtain a competitive job and gave a range of other goals for participation unrelated to employment. Despite the fact that their length of stay was significantly longer, older adults earned lower wages and were more likely to drop out or to earn an 'unsuccessful' discharge. These data suggest that rehabilitation services need to be reorganized to meet the divergent needs of many older adults