Pop Quiz: What Is An Occupational Therapist?
People ask me “What do you do at OSI as an Occupational therapist?“
I tell people I help people with Work Injury Management; helping injured workers bridge the gap between their course of PT/OT and return to work.
“How do you do that?“
We see people who have highly demanding physical jobs who are attending physical therapy or have recently completed it. Many of our clients are seen in Work Conditioning, which includes 2-4 hour sessions 3-5 days/week addressing general cardiovascular conditioning, injury specific strengthening and job simulation, often accompanied by a visit to the work site to measure the physical demands and assist the employer in finding appropriate light/transitional duty tasks if available.
“What if Work Conditioning doesn’t get me back to my old job?“
There are times we know that an injured worker will not be returning to their original job for a variety of reasons. Work Conditioning can still be an effective tool to optimize a workers functional ability to return to employment, often in conjunction with the services of a QRC (Qualified Rehabilitation Consultant).
We also perform Functional Capacity Evaluations, which are a 1 or 2 day comprehensive evaluation of a workers safe functional abilities across a number of physical tasks used to assist return to work decisions for workers, employers, MD’s, QRC’s and Attorneys.
If you have any questions regarding the continuum of therapy services provided at
OSI Physical Therapy, or Work Injury Management services including the services of OccHealth of OSI, feel free to contact us for more info at 651-275-4706.
Thanks for reading!
– Lisa