FUNCTIONAL CAPACITY EVALUATION
A FCEs primary purpose is to determine individual’s functional abilities and limitations in the context of a safe environment while focusing on productive work tasks.
WORKERS' COMPENSATION | WORK CONDITIONING
The service we provide is a valuable tool in assessing an employee’s safe working abilities and/or establishing baseline abilities for disability evaluations. Our FCE correlates a client’s functional abilities to the essential physical demands of their job to determine whether they meet these physical demands. Consistency of effort and reliability of pain ratings are important elements of our evaluation, which is why over 70 separate criteria throughout the FCE help determine if a client is putting forth consistent effort and whether their subjective pain ratings are reliable. Additionally, the Functional Capacity Evaluation testing method we use has consistently stood up in a court of law with reliability and validity research to support the testing method.
Who Can Benefit From an FCE?
- Someone who has been injured on the job to determine his or her ability to return to the job or alternate work
- Someone applying for Social Security Disability benefits
- Someone seeking to return to work or volunteer activities after an injury or illness
- Someone injured in a catastrophic accident (i.e., automobile accident) for whom an FCE can determine performance skills and abilities related to resuming former employment or a new job
- Someone seeking vocational rehabilitation services
- Students receiving transitional services from school to the work setting to determine their skills and the extent of support required to perform in a job
What Are the Components of the FCE?
The components of the FCE will vary based on the purpose of the assessment. The evaluation generally consists of four parts
- Interviewing and psychometric testing
- Clinical testing
- Functional testing
- Review of findings and recommendations
Functional testing may include graded material-handling activities such as lifting, carrying, pushing, and pulling; and positional tolerance activities such as sitting, standing, walking, balancing, reaching, stooping, kneeling, crouching, crawling, object handling/manipulation, fingering, hand grasping, and hand manipulation.
Pain monitoring is frequently performed during the FCE to document client-reported levels of pain during various activities as well as to manage pain. The FCE may also include evaluation of an individual’s hand dexterity, hand coordination, endurance, and other job-specific functions. The FCE report includes an overall physical demand level, a summary of job-specific physical abilities, a summary of performance consistency and overall voluntary effort, job match information, adaptations to enhance performance, and treatment recommendations, if requested. Some FCEs are designed to also report on the worker’s ability to meet the cognitive demands of the job in question.
FCEs are done on a one-on-one basis and may range in length from 3 to 4 hours.
WORK CONDITIONING
Work conditioning in physical therapy is a structured program designed to help individuals recover from work-related injuries or prevent future injuries. It focuses on restoring physical strength, flexibility, endurance, and coordination to enable the patient to safely return to their job. The program includes exercises and activities that mimic tasks specific to the patient's occupation, helping them build the physical capacity required for their work duties. Work conditioning also aims to improve functional performance and reduce the risk of re-injury in the workplace.