Industrial Rehabilitation Services

Integrity Physical Therapy and Industrial Rehabilitation specializes in the prevention, treatment and functional evaluation of work-place related injuries. We offer a range of services designed to meet the rehabilitative and preventative needs of the worker's compensation and general business population. All programs are compliant with OSHA and ADA standards and guidelines.

Our Industrial Rehabilitation Program offerings include:

• Injury Prevention Services
• ADA Compliance Programs
• Functional Capacity Evaluation
• Work Hardening
• Work Conditioning
• Ergonomic Assessments

Our programs are conducted by licensed Physical and Occupational Therapists who have extensive training with the industrial clientele and over 8 years clinical experience.

Injury Prevention Services

Our injury prevention menu is extensive and can be tailored to the individual needs of the employer. The services we offer are used throughout the country with an average outcome of 70% reduction in musculoskeletal disorders. There are a lot of prevention programs out there today. The vital, unique characteristic of our prevention program is that we address injuries, claims, and costs as three separate issues, with a set of prevention controls for each of these. Our services include: OSHA Log Review: Initial baseline to identify injury trends and history prior to initiating a program. Work Risk Analysis: observation and objective documentation of all real or potential risks for cumulative trauma disorder (CTD). Neck-Arm CTD Training: Separate management and employee educational programs on anatomical and biomechanical aspects of the spine, potential stresses, and injury prevention strategies. Back School Training: Separate management and employee educational programs on anatomical and biomechanical aspects of the spine, potential stresses, and injury prevention strategies. Ergonomics Team Training: Organizing and training a team of management and employees to carry out long-term ergonomic injury prevention efforts. Customized Stretching Program: Job-specific stretches to perform at the work place to help decrease CTD injuries. Post-Offer Employment Screens: Performed on employees to determine if they can perform essential functions of the job. Ergonomic Consultations: Identification of ergonomics-related issues in the workplace and consultation on possible solutions.

ADA Compliance Programs

Worker's compensation claims are usually costly to an employer. If the claim leads to disability the cost will go even higher. The potential exists that an injured worker may file an ADA claim. It makes sense and saves money to be prepared for this situation with proper documentation of job functions. Also, a company must provide reasonable accommodation if a person with a disability needs to perform a job. A licensed physical or occupational therapist can determine the physical limitations of an employee and compare them to the job demands to make appropriate recommendations for accommodation. Our programs include: Functional Job Analysis: Definition and identification of essential functions and related tasks of a job. This is used to write an ADA compliant job description. Job Description: Formal documentation of all physical demands required of a specific job. Video Job Catalog: Helping a company establish a comprehensive data base of information concerning the principal jobs performed at that company. Job Accommodation Assessment: Performing a comprehensive analysis of a full-duty job and making recommendations for possible accommodations.

Functional Capacity Evaluations

The Functional Capacity Evaluation (FCE) or Work Capacity Evaluation objectively determines an individual's current physical capacity and ability to perform work tasks. This type of evaluation is useful to physicians, case managers, insurance adjustors, employers, and vocational counselors to determine if an injured worker is able to return to his pre-injury job. It is also useful in facilitating a timely closure to worker's compensation claims. The clinicians who administer our FCEs are experts in the field of industrial rehabilitation and have an average of 8 years of experience performing these evaluations. Components of the Integrity standardized FCE are:

• Musculoskeletal screen
• Sub-maximal cardiovascular stress test
• Isometric strength testing
• Dynamic strength testing
• Positional tolerance testing
• Job simulation
• Specific testing for consistency of effort

Work Hardening

Upon completion of acute physical or occupational therapy an injured worker may not be physically able to return to his pre-injury job. Work hardening is an intensive, daily program designed to prepare the injured worker to return to the rigors of his full-duty job. The benefits of work hardening include maximizing the injured worker's physical potential to return to work and facilitation of a timely closure to a workers compensation claim. Our work hardening program components include:

• Multidisciplinary groups (psychological and vocational)
• Job simulation tasks
• Individualized exercises
• Cardiovascular conditioning
• Flexibility training
• Material handling
• Positional tolerance circuits

Work Conditioning

This is a less intensive and more specialized program to facilitate return to work. Typically the work conditioning program is 3-4 time per week for 2-4 hours per day. The goal of this program is to increase the strength and endurance of an individual for return to his pre-injury or any job. The work conditioning program may also be used as a bridge between acute therapy and work hardening for those individuals who are not physically ready for an intensive daily program. Work conditioning components are similar to those specified for work hardening.

Ergonomic Assessments/Consultations

Proactive employers can save on costly workers compensation claims by addressing discomfort before it becomes a claim. An ergonomic assessment is performed by a trained and certified, licensed occupational or physical therapist. This detailed assessment includes an interview with the employee, details on reported discomfort and medical management, objective measurements of the workspace, an analysis of the required tasks of the job, and identification of any risk factors. In addition to identifying the risk factors of cumulative trauma disorders, the ergonomic assessment provides recommendations for minimizing or eliminating these risk factors such as stretching, changing the physical layout of the workstation, adjusting the chair, or adding adaptive equipment. Ergonomic consultations are an alternative to individual ergonomic assessments. They can be performed "en masse" in a workplace. Each employee and his/her workstation is evaluated for approximately 10-20 minutes by the therapist. Changes are made as needed during the consultation and general recommendations are made in document form to management following competition of all consultations.