
Promote a sustainable working life for people with cognitive impairment
Digitization in society has changed the conditions in working life and increased the cognitive demands on all workers, but the changes are particularly noticeable for people with cognitive impairment. Therefore, new, more accurate interventions need to be developed.
Digitization and the increased use of technology have, for example, contributed to increased expectations of accessibility and of doing several tasks in parallel. Further to an increased information flow and a higher work rate. New technical solutions and updates require constant learning to keep up with developments and to maintain competence. These changes lead to increased demands on workers' cognitive functions such as concentration, memory and simultaneous capacity. The changes also mean increased demands on managing psychosocial challenges at work and on balancing work life and everyday life. Even for employers, challenges arise in work environment work with the rapid digital changes to work environments. The digitization of the work environment thus places new demands on early assessment and design of work rehabilitation as well as on work environment work. New knowledge is needed to understand both the workers' situation and the employers' perspective in order to be able to develop rehabilitative and preventive measures to promote a long working life with health in digital work environments.
The overall aim of the research is to increase understanding of how early and more accurate work rehabilitation can be designed for workers with cognitive difficulties related to Stroke, MS, Parkinson's or COVID-19. Furthermore, how brain-friendly work environments can be designed. The intention is to contribute to a sustainable working life for people with cognitive disabilities.
Our prel. research results from two sub-studies indicate that employees with neurological diagnoses who have digital jobs experience cognitive difficulties that negatively affect them at work and other activities in everyday life and that it can be difficult to measure them with customary assessment instruments. The result also indicates that the opportunity to work is related to how activities outside of work are handled. It is therefore important to systematically assess how cognitive difficulties affect work and everyday life as well as the management strategies that are used to enable a sustainable working and everyday life in a digitalized age. The result also indicates the importance that the employee receives support in self-evaluating and reflecting on the use of management strategies and how they can be used to a greater extent as a resource to facilitate work and other activities in everyday life.
The project is carried out in collaboration with Region Norrbotten, Competence Center Rehabilitation Medicine and is supported by research funds from the Neurofonden.
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