Work-related injuries can permanently change your life, affecting your physical condition and ability to return to your routine. Workers’ Compensation is a medical coverage that provides health care to injured employees. WholePerson Therapeutics occupational therapist provides comprehensive physical rehabilitation services to employees who were injured on their job. WholePerson’s comprehensive physical rehabilitation service is designed to ensure the best care, optimal recovery, and support to the injured employee and to provide objective, unbiased reports and documentation to the workers' compensation healthcare team. The following paragraphs describe how occupational therapists' therapeutic interventions can help you and your healthcare team.
What Does WholePerson Therapeutics Therapy Services Offer?
At WholePerson Therapeutics, we offer a unique approach to treating each person. Our patients receive a full range of personalized therapy services that focus on speeding up their recovery and facilitating communication with the workers' compensation team regarding the employee's progress and recommendations. Next, Our customized plans:
Customized Therapy Plans
Tailored Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Treatments. WholePerson Therapeutics services initiate an intake that gathers information about your whole body; everything is connected. Based on all the information provided, they identify and treat your condition, starting at the root of the problem. A customized therapy plan is created to:
Restore Function: The program may include exercises and activities to help you improve your mobility, strength, and coordination. All the activities are selected based on a detailed analysis of your abilities and disabilities, ensuring they are appropriate for you and will provide an effective outcome.
Pain Reduction and Management: They employ a variety of treatments that target the source of your pain. After all, there are over 8 types of pain, each requiring a different treatment approach. Therefore, based on the pain you are experiencing, the treatments may include heat and cold therapy, ultrasound therapy, diathermy, and other options, such as holistic patches that work together with the therapeutic activity or exercises recommended to reduce your pain discomfort.
Enhance your Quality of Life: The ultimate therapy goal is not just recovery from an injury but enhancing your quality of life. Our therapist will help you cope with your injury, regain the physical ability to participate in your daily tasks and return to your routines with reduced pain and maximum potential. Next, your physical capabilities and limitation assessment.
Assessments of Physical Capabilities and Limitations
WholePerson Therapeutics evaluates your physical capabilities and limitations to determine your current level of function. It implements the level of therapy services that meet your functional level and motivate you to participate in your program. After all, you can’t run if you require a wheelchair to move. Therefore they:
Determine Physical Capabilities: Our therapist will use various tools to assess your physical abilities and determine your limitations. Identifying your limitations is the first step toward creating a therapy plan.
Identifying Limitations: Information about the injury, how you functioned previously, and your current physical limitations is required to create a therapy plan that works. We customize appropriate intervention and treatment strategies based on your status and goals. We know there is no “one size fits all” approach to helping individuals recover from injuries. Let's talk about Functional Capacity Evaluations.
Functional Capacity Evaluation: This is a Test to Evaluate your capacity to perform your Job-Related duties.
A Functional Capacity Evaluation (FCE) in labor-intensive jobs is critical to determining when you can return to work and if your job duties, tasks, and responsibilities need to be modified. This evaluation involves:
Assessing Job-Related Tasks: This assessment provides scientific evidence and objective data to help determine to what extent you can do your job. The test includes precise job-connected activities such as lifting, carrying, pushing, pulling, reaching, standing, and any other tasks you must perform during your workday.
Evaluating Daily Job Activities: As work duties are performed differently by each individual, we learn about your daily job routines and how you typically perform them; this information guides or determines your need for special accommodation if you need help performing your work activities. Thankfully, the FCE provides objective data that helps us assess each task separately in terms of how your injury is affecting your function, so the recommendations to your employer and workers' compensation team are inclusive and guide the creation of a treatment plan that provides you appropriate care for your whole body to return you to work.
In summary, Our post-FCE Recommendations are based on the results of the FCE, WholePerson Therapeutics:
Provide objective findings to the Worker's Compensation team
Provide recommendations in favor of, or against, a person returning to work by a set date
Provide recommendations on the need for continued therapy services with an extended return to work date
Provide recommendations for earliest return to work using temporary, or permanent, workplace accommodations.
Recommended Workplace Accommodations: Your workplace may need to be modified or adjusted to ensure that you can continue to do your job effectively and safely as you return to your previous level of function.
With supporting objective data and our recommendations, your worker's compensation care team has evidence that helps their decision-making process regarding your recovery and employment needs. Let's talk about Pain.
Pain Management
Effective Techniques and Therapies for Chronic Pain management is a critical component of the recovery process. At WholePerson Therapeutics, a variety of techniques and therapies are used to:
Reduce Chronic Pain: We help you reduce, and/or resolve, pain using many techniques during therapy. For example, manual therapy procedures utilize " hands-on strategies and often involve a relatively high degree of specific movements, pressure points, and more." Manual therapy techniques, such as massage and joint mobilization, decrease pain levels and increase mobility to help reduce pain and improve body function.
Manage Discomfort: Some modalities may include heat therapy, cold therapy, diathermy, electrical stimulation, and ultrasound to prepare the muscles and joints for movement with reduced pain and discomfort. These techniques are integrated into the therapy plan to manage pain comprehensively.
Restoration of Body Function: Exercises and activities restore body function and movement. Activities may include moving from sitting to standing to gain independence when standing from a chair. Stretching and joint movement may relax muscles and reduce neck strain. These activities, when practiced, may strengthen weak muscles that hurt when you move. The strength of the muscles contributes to resolving pain symptoms. These approaches show how pain can be reduced and help you return to everyday activities. Let's talk about your return to work.
Return-to-Work Planning
Develop Strategies for Safe Return to work by:
Creating a Safe Transition Plan: Strategies are developed to ensure a smooth and safe return to work. This includes considering any physical limitations or accommodations needed to perform your job effectively.
Monitoring Progress: Ongoing support tracks your progress as you return to work. This involves regular assessments to ensure that you are meeting recovery goals and making any necessary adjustments to the plan. Monitoring may be as simple as a weekly call to your therapist providing updates or a weekly visit.
Ergonomic Adjustments and Work Modifications to help you perform your work duties, WholePerson Therapeutics may provide the following services:
Ergonomic Adjustments: We recommend changes to your work environment to reduce the risk of further injury. This may involve adjusting your workstation, changing your equipment, or recommending better ergonomic practices.
Work Modifications: We refer you to recommendations made to your employer regarding modifications in your job tasks and responsibilities to accommodate your present physical status. We ensure you can perform your functions without sacrificing your recovery.
What Occupational Therapists Do?
Occupational therapists (OTs) play a vital role in all types of rehabilitation in home and community settings, hospitals, long-term care, mental and behavioral health settings, outpatient clinics, community education settings, etc. For individuals recovering from injuries. We are instrumental in helping you regain independence and return to your daily activities and job responsibilities. Here's how we do it:
Assessment and Evaluation: The OT will thoroughly evaluate your person, work, environment and daily life, in terms of how they are affected by your injury. The OT will get overall results that will be an essential basis for designing individualized therapies to address your needs.
Physical Rehabilitation and Therapy: Rehabilitation and physical therapy refer to the process of using movement, tools, equipment, exercises, activities, and more to improve strength, range of motion, ability, overall function, and more.
Education and Training: The OT will teach you the most efficient ways and strategies to perform your everyday habits or work duties based on your injury or declining condition. Training on different techniques and education explaining the value of using the recommended strategies lowers your chance of recurring injuries.
Documentation and Advocacy: The OT will regularly document your progress and the challenges you are experiencing. This supporting documentation can help you, your employer, and your workers' compensation team understand your injury, recovery, and needs. This documentation may also be used for legal or insurance purposes if necessary.
The Benefits of Adding an Occupational Therapist to Your Care
Without a doubt, using an occupational therapist in your recovery plan boosts your recovery and the benefits of the care you receive from your medical team. Let's take a closer look at why this is so:
Holistic Approach: Medical doctors focus on identifying and treating your condition through pharmaceuticals and other medical tests such as blood work, MRI, x-ray, etc. The occupational therapist reviews the doctor’s medical findings, in combination with the results of their specific assessments and conclusions that identify your physical abilities and limitations that affect how you perform your daily work duties and home activity demands to create a treatment plan that results in successful recovery from your injuries. This comprehensive approach by the occupational therapist is a holistic and thorough approach to helping you recover.
Enhanced Functionality: Occupational therapists work on improving your ability to function and participate in your work and life duties after a life-changing event such as a work injury. This means they can help you return to your work faster or provide objective data that recommends your return to work be delayed as you may require additional recovery time to perform the tasks safely. This recommendation of delaying your return to work, or not returning, may benefit you as it may provide information that supports your need for disability or retraining for a different job based on the severity of your injury. Both recommendations affect your quality of life and give you safer employment options.
Improved Pain Management: They offer strategies and techniques to manage pain more effectively, complementing the medical treatments you are receiving. This integrated approach helps in achieving better pain reduction and overall comfort.
Jobs with High Injury Risks
All jobs have various work injury risks. Below is an example of how Occupational Therapy can address injuries for multiple jobs:
Nurses and Assisted Living Employees: These individuals' responsibilities can be physically demanding as they include lifting, moving, slipping and falling, and shifting patients, which can lead to musculoskeletal injuries such as back pain. In these cases, an occupational therapist provides education and training focused on injury prevention or recovery. At WholePerson Therapeutics, we support human resources in reducing employee injury by providing onsite training to remind the employees of the importance of the basics, such as lifting with their knees, recommending the best shoe design for safety, attending and recognizing patient indicator or discomfort to avoid the patient reactive behaviors that can result in employee injury—ultimately reducing the number of injuries the employees sustain. At times, reducing employee injuries can have a beneficial financial impact on the organization’s health care plan.
Servers, office or administrative workers, and professional workers such as lawyers, teachers, dentists, dental hygienists, and more. These jobs require the employee to perform repetitive activities that can result in overuse injuries. Injuries incurred in these professions include carpal tunnel syndrome and wrist, neck, and shoulder pain; some injuries include sprains and strains. An occupational therapist can provide therapeutic techniques to manage, reduce and reslove injuries caused by the performance of repetitive activities such as typing. For example, the occupational therapist may recommend a wrist stabilizing brace wearing schedule to rest the wrist, allowing it time to heal without any absences from work.
Plumbers, General Contractors, and Construction Workers: These workers perform work that requires heavy physical work, such as lifting heavy items and maneuvering into small places using abnormal body positions. These job duties can result in muscle strains, slip discs, compression of the spine, and pulled shoulders, neck, and back injuries. Occupational therapy can help by providing rehabilitation interventions, home programs, and ergonomic solutions that reduce the risk of injury and manage minor discomfort before your injury becomes significant and surgical/medical intervention is required.
Drivers (Taxi, Uber, Truck, Bus, equipment operators): Sitting in for up to eight hours daily and navigating transportation contributes to back strain, carpal tunnel syndrome, neck pain, sciatica, and lower back pain. Ergonomic adjustments, a Home therapy program, on-the-job work-rest schedules, and exercises can help manage pain and prevent injury. The key is to seek therapeutic intervention when the discomfort begins before it escalates, resulting in the need for surgical or medical intervention and the absence of work.
Types of Injuries Experienced in Various Jobs
Different jobs expose workers to various types of injuries. Here's an overview of common injuries and how occupational therapy can help:
Slips, Trips, and Falls are common in nursing and assisted living jobs. These can result in sprains, fractures, and neck and back injuries. In healthcare, Occupational therapy focuses on environmental modification, patient balance, and strength-building interventions that identify individual limitations that require additional support to prevent employee and patient injuries.
Repetitive Motion Injuries in jobs such as construction, office work, waitressing, and driving often lead to carpal tunnel syndrome, tendinitis, and muscle strain. Occupational therapy can provide therapy for managing pain and physical discomfort associated with repetitive movement. This may include a home therapy program or nutrient support to help the body recover faster and heal itself, reducing the pain and expediting the decline in function.
Overexertion Injuries occur where employees are doing heavy lifting work, such as construction, plumbing, and general heavy-duty work, experience injuries such as muscle strains, back and muscle injuries, and joint pain. Occupational therapy can benefit these workers by recommending a work-rest plan that keeps employees productive and safe.
Contact with Objects and Equipment injuries are common in construction, plumbing, and maintenance work, where tools and equipment are frequently used, resulting in cuts, bruises, and muscle injuries. Occupational therapy is helpful in rehabilitation and recovery from such injuries. It provides recommendations that may include protective clothing or shoes to reduce injury to the individuals when using their specialized tools.
Statistics on Work-Related Injuries
According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, work-related injuries are prevalent. They can have a significant impact on workers and employers. Key statistics include:
● Slips, Trips, and Falls Account for 28% of nonfatal workplace injuries.
● Overexertion: Causes 33% of all work-related injuries.
● Repetitive Motion Injuries Make up 20% of work-related injuries.
These statistics underscore the importance of effective injury prevention and rehabilitation strategies, including occupational therapy.
Cost of Work-Related Injuries
The financial impact of work-related injuries extends beyond medical treatment:
Missing Work Days: Due to the nature of the work, most work-related injuries result in extended absences. According to the statistics, such injuries result in about eight missed work days by the employee. This can affect the employee's income and job rating, forcing the employer to look for someone else, mainly if the employee works under a contract.
Increased Medical Expenses: Ongoing treatments and rehabilitation contribute to the overall cost of injuries. The expenses associated with medical visits, therapy sessions, and medication can add up, making effective management and recovery strategies crucial.
Long-Term Implications: Such injuries may be excruciating, and with time, they may heal to change a person's physical health. They may result in shorter working hours and reduced earning capacity. This only justifies the effectiveness of the occupational therapy strategy.
How WholePerson Therapeutics Can Improve Your Health and Workers' Compensation Case
WholePerson Therapeutics offers services to enhance your recovery and support your workers' compensation claim. Here's how:
Comprehensive Care: This type of care is vital to recovery when a person gets injured at work. WholePerson Therapeutics provides physical and mental health therapies to help you recover from functional limitations caused by accidents and injuries. The "comprehensive care" approach benefits clients by returning them to work in the shortest amount of time.
Detailed Documentation: Detailed documentation is essential as it provides an inclusive picture of a person’s abilities and limitations before and after their injuries to guide decisions in a workers' compensation case. WholePerson Therapeutics provides such documentation based on objective, subjective, environmental, functional, and activity-based data.
Customized Plans: Their personalized therapy plans are customized to each individual's needs and include the most effective evidence-based treatment for your injury.
Return-to-Work Support: WholePerson Therapeutics assists you in developing strategies and accommodations that will make your return to work easier. They also help with ergonomics and environmental modification with a compare-and-contrast approach to work accommodation recommendations; should modifications be temporary, they may include ongoing therapy.
Conclusion
Incorporating occupational therapy into your workers' compensation case or your recovery may significantly benefit your health and workers' compensation case. WholePerson Therapeutics has much to offer, as your physical, emotional, and functional development is a priority in any decision that affects your ability to perform your work duties. At a time of work-related pain and injuries, occupational therapy may be a way not only to hasten recovery but also to facilitate coping with the aftermath that affects one's occupation. Contacting an occupational therapist at WholePerson Therapeutics may make a massive difference in your life. If you have had an accident or injury at work, call WholePerson Therapeutics; they can help you.
If you're recovering from a work-related injury or workers' compensation medical provider seeking additional information to support your employee recommendation, contact WholePerson Therapeutics today. Their objective approaches, customized therapy services, and expert care can expedite an employee's return to work and your decision-making process on the worker's compensation claim. Workers Compensation providers and Employees who experienced work injuries, Contact WholePerson Therapeutics and learn how they can help you.
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