The Role of the Physical Therapist in Treatment and Prevention of Workers’ Compensation Injuries

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This is the first in a series of courses on Occupational Health. Employers and workers compensation professionals are increasingly looking to physical therapists to help them understand why and how workplace injuries occur and can be prevented. They also need our guidance when injuries occur in order to return the worker to the workplace as efficiently and safely as possible. Given the recent negative attention on the use of opioids in the management of musculoskeletal injury management, physical therapy preventions and treatments are ideally positioned as an effective alternative. Now is the time for physical therapists to step forward and demonstrate that we have unique professional competencies in the area of treatment and prevention of work-related injuries. The purpose of this course is to provide an introduction to the role of physical therapist in assessing, treating and preventing work-related injuries.

Learning Objectives:

1. Understand the environment and compliance issues related to the treatment of work-related injuries

2. Describe the unique aspects of treating workers compensation patients in the outpatient setting

3. Identify the opportunities to work with employers to prevent workplace injuries

Review the other courses in the series:

Deborah Lechner

PT, MS

Deborah is a leading expert in the field of industrial injury prevention and rehabilitation. Through research she conducted at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Deborah has developed and validated a functional capacity evaluation and pre-hire screen, the Physical Work Performance Evaluation (PWPE). She has also developed a systematic process for quantifying the physical demands of work, the Quantitative Job Demands Analysis (QJDA) and studied the reliability of that protocol with the US Department of Labor. Ms. Lechner has published her work and literature reviews in international journals and has presented numerous workshops on functional capacity evaluation, job demands analysis, pre-hire testing, ergonomics, return-to-work and industrial rehabilitation, both nationally and internationally. In addition to her academic career, she is founder and President of ErgoScience TM, Inc., a company that provides job analysis, ergonomic consultation, pre-hire and return-to-work functional screening, worksite physical therapy treatment, functional capacity evaluations, employee training and impairment ratings to employers throughout the US and Canada.

Course Instructions

Click on the Contents tab to watch the course recording.
Click the Take Quiz button to complete the assessment. Learners will have 3 attempts to pass and must answer at least 70% of questions correctly.
Click Fill Out Survey under the Evaluation listing to provide valuable course feedback. Scroll down on all questions as there may be answer options that expand past the size of the window.
Click the View/Print Your Certificate button under the Certificate listing. You can view/print your certificate at any time by visiting the APTA Learning Center and clicking the CEU Certificate/Transcript link on the left-hand side of the page.