Home Search Sitemap Contact Bookmark

Free Dissertations - Business Dissertations

1.1 Work Ability Work Ability Is An Important Aspect In Relation To Older ...

1.1 Work Ability

Work Ability is an important aspect in relation to older employees. The risk of a diminished level of work ability increases with age. In a Finnish Study 'Respect for the Ageing', work ability decreased in 30% of the workers over a study period of 11 years (Ilmarinen, 2000b, pp. 203-210). Occupational Health for older workers has benefited from the initiatives of scientists of the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health. They developed, in the early 1980s, an important new instrument called the Work Ability Index. This questionnaire was successfully tested in Finland and subsequently translated and applied in several other countries (Costa et al, 2000, pp. 53-61).

3.1.2 Work Ability Index

In 1995, the Work Ability Index (WAI) was translated into Dutch and a first pilot study was done among Dutch industrial and clerical workers. In 1998, the 2nd edition of the WAI was published by the Finnish Institute (Tuomi et al, 1998, p. 30). The following represent improvements that were implemented:
4 categories of Work Ability, which was increased form 3, as represented by ‘poor, moderate, good, excellent',
Forms for periodic follow up of the Work Ability Index (WAI) score of individual workers were made available

A list of follow up measures was published and represented an important tool for specific advice to individual workers and management

An important question concerns the rate of change in work ability in relation to age. Physiological functions (e.g., pulmonary function, maximal endurance capacity, maximal heart rate) usually decrease roughly by about 1 % per year (30 years=100%) (Shock et al, 1984). It was found that the decrease in average WAI score with age is smaller than the average physiological decrease (Goedhard, 2000, pp. 62-67). The WAI is a complex entity that may depend on many different variables, such as age, workloads and exposures, work organisation and individual health.
3.1.3 Work Ability Index Study
In a study of the Work Ability Index a questionnaire was implemented in the Periodic Health Examinations of two Dutch Occupational Health services. The examined persons were industrial and clerical workers, age-range: 19-60 years (Goedhard, 2000, pp. 62-67). It, the study, utilized means and standard deviations (s.d.) of the WAI and its different items are shown in Table 4 The figures represent the study group as well as two sub-groups: (a) with a poor-moderate W l AI score and (b) with a good-excellent WAI score (Goedhard, 2000, pp. 62-67).
Table 4 - Scores (meanąs.d.


Thanks