2002 10 21 TELEBALT, Vilnius 1

Alvydas JuocevičiusTHINK Baltic Extension project coordinator in Lithuania

Tomas SinevičiusCoordinator asisstant

2002 10 21 TELEBALT, Vilnius 2

Our partners:Local partners:Local partners:

Rehabilitation centre Valakupiai

Society of disabled of Lithuania

Association of blind and people

with vision disability

Vilnius department of association of people with

spinal cord injury

General partnersGeneral partners:

Vilnius University HospitalSantariskiu klinikos

2002 10 21 TELEBALT, Vilnius 3

Statistics and data

• 205890 persons with disabilities;

177327 - of them are receiving social Insurance disability

pensions; 13857 - children under 16 years; 14706 - individuals disabled since

childhood (16 years of age and older);

2002 10 21 TELEBALT, Vilnius 4

Structure of disability in Lithuania in 2000

82,53

1,98

13,95 1,44

Physical disability

Vision disability

Mental sisability

Hearing disability

2002 10 21 TELEBALT, Vilnius 5

Grouping of disabled according to age in 2000

5,6%

64,1%

30,3%

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

Children under 16 Employable age Pensioners

Our analysis shows that most of the disabled

people are of employable age – they

can be potential participants of the

project, they can study, master and effectively

use modern technologies.

2002 10 21 TELEBALT, Vilnius 6

• Special group of disabled is patient with spinal cord injury and for them new technologies would be good alternative.

• Every year new cases of spinal cord injuries patient reaches 120-150 and the average of this handicapped persons is 28 years.

2002 10 21 TELEBALT, Vilnius 7

Before the trauma they were:

38%

21%

17%

24%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Unemplyed

Retarded

Students

Employed

2002 10 21 TELEBALT, Vilnius 8

SCI patients distribution by level of injury

38,7%

30,0%

31,3%

tetraplegics

paraplegics (lesion inthoracic level)

paraplegics (lesion in lumballevel)

2002 10 21 TELEBALT, Vilnius 9

33%

67%

female

male

Distribution of SCI by gender

2002 10 21 TELEBALT, Vilnius 10

Physical capacity of SCI patients

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

Beforerehabilitation

Afterrehabilitation

I grope

II grope

III grope

Healthy people

2002 10 21 TELEBALT, Vilnius 11

Functional independece test

41-50

51-60 61-70 71-80

Before rehabilitati

on

43% 57%

After rehabilitati

on

14% 86%

Remote period

100%

Period

Value

2002 10 21 TELEBALT, Vilnius 12

Needs for social rehabilitation change during the rehabilitation process. At the beginning of rehabilitation it plays less important role and medical rehabilitation predominates. Later on,

this relation changes.

Social

Psychological

Medical

2002 10 21 TELEBALT, Vilnius 13

• Rehabilitation system established in Lithuania during 10 years allows implementing complex rehabilitation.

• Medical and psychological rehabilitation has improved greatly meanwhile the social rehabilitation system is not developed well enough.

2002 10 21 TELEBALT, Vilnius 14

Unemployment

• Unemployment in the country is decreasing for the fifth month in a row. It started to decrease in February and until the end of May it decreased by 1.8 percent points. In May unemployment rate in Lithuania decreased by 0.7 percent points and on June 1, it made 11.1 percent of labour force.

2002 10 21 TELEBALT, Vilnius 15

Returning to work

60%

90%

25%

0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

Scandinaviccountries

Switzerland Lithuania*

*- data of VU Physical medicine and rehabilitation centre

2002 10 21 TELEBALT, Vilnius 16

Internet users

• Recent study claimed that in Lithuania Information Technologies developed last few years.

• The percentage value of users in 2001 year was 17.7% of all population and this amount is still growing up.

2002 10 21 TELEBALT, Vilnius 17

It was good possibility to start develop new model for the inclusion of handicapped persons in the labour market when TELEMAN from Portugal and OPEN LATVIA invited partner from Lithuania to take part in THINK Baltic project.

2002 10 21 TELEBALT, Vilnius 18

While seeking for better results, it is necessary to develop social (and especially professional) rehabilitation, which requires big investment. The THINK project is one of the likely ways of dealing with this problem.

2002 10 21 TELEBALT, Vilnius 19

Advantages of the project:

• this model requires less financial resources;

• an employer does not have to equip a special working place - the living places of the disabled could be adapted for the working needs. The disabled should buy some of the telecommunication equipment themselves;

2002 10 21 TELEBALT, Vilnius 20

As shows our Portugal coordinators 94 % of customers are satisfacted of quality performed by teleworkers-disabled persons. Teleworkes average income is 2-5 minimal wages.

2002 10 21 TELEBALT, Vilnius 21

Results of preliminary studies have shown that THINK Baltic extension project may be successfully implemented in

Lithuania, because:

• the medical rehabilitation system is effective enough;

• disabled are of employable age;• interest in the project of potential

employers has been observed;• all the technical, telecommunication

and software equipment, needed for implementation of the project, is quite easily accessible;

2002 10 21 TELEBALT, Vilnius 22

Thank you for your attention