Return to Work Programs
Getting back to the workplace is an important step in recovering from any work-related injury and means a worker can return to a normal life, often reducing the financial and emotional impact on them and their family.
Long term work absence, work disability and unemployment generally have a negative impact on health and wellbeing.
Research has shown that the longer a worker takes time off for sickness or injury, the less likely they are to return to work.
If off work for:
20 days—the chance of getting back to work is 70%
45 days—the chance of getting back to work is 50%
70 days—the chance of getting back to work is 35%
6 months—the chance of getting back to work is 20%
% chance RTW
Why bother with a Return to Work exercise program?
Workplace rehabilitation is a step-by-step process that allows workers to regain control and independence in their life after experiencing an injury or illness. It also ensures the worker’s earliest possible return to work.
Overall, an effective program designed by an Exercise Physiologist to aid in a timely return to work process can offer employers and workers:
Decreased medical, disability and legal claim costs
Increased employee morale and productivity
Reduced time and wage expense from lost/reduced productivity
More effective recognition of workers compensation claim fraud
Increased motivation for workers to return to the workplace quickly
This is why it’s so important to be able to reintegrate into a work environment in a timely manner, even if not at 100% capacity or unable to undertake regular full-time hours/duties.
Additionally, early rehabilitation intervention, initiated within the first 6 weeks, has been linked to positive RTW outcomes.
How can movement be medicine for injured workers?
Having an Accredited Exercise Physiologist (AEP) guide workers’ rehabilitation to best reduce risk for aggravation, limit chances of re-injury as well as optimise physical conditioning for work-related tasks can make or break a smooth reintegration to the workplace following time-off.
Exercise physiologists work with people and employers to rehabilitate injuries and enhance function to best tolerate the physical demands of an occupational environment. This helps workers to achieve peak productivity faster, and reduces the time spent outside of a productive working environment due to illness or injury.
Not only is this beneficial to employers wanting to offers their workers the best chance of recovery and limit absenteeism - but is also incredibly useful for workers’ mental health, as being injured or in pain shouldn’t mean an employee is less valued or a less useful asset to the company - despite there being small adjustments for both parties that need to be made throughout the journey.
AEPs are also experts at functional capacity evaluations and physical occupational capacity testing, which can be very useful for developing a safe and effective suitable duties plan/ return to work timeline in combination with the Doctors and other allied health professionals involved.
This level of precise evaluation also ensures rehabilitation intensity fits the workers stage of healing, stage of fitness for work and stage of readiness to make behaviour change.
What’s involved?
An exercise physiology intervention aiming to facilitate an effective return to work process for an injured worker revolves around patient-centred care.
A consultation will usually involve a discussion of current and past medical/ injury history, including any effective or ineffective treatments to best prepare a treatment plan that works for the individual. Combined with this, is an in-depth look at occupational demands, psycho-social factors and individual goals for rehabilitation are discussed that can best assist a worker towards achieving self-management.
After determining individual impairments/problems - we can then devise a specific plan of action that may involve supervised aerobic, strength or flexibility exercises as well as work-task specific retraining. This might also involve home-based exercises or a progressive transition towards clinical group/class based exercises that promotes less reliance on the clinician and more independence in being able to self-manage relevant health concerns/injuries.
This allows the worker to develop autonomy and motivation to be in charge of their health and take the necessary steps to return ot their workplace in a timely and productive manner.
Along each step of the recovery journey, the worker is guided with feedback, advice and education on their condition, evidence based methods to manage their symptoms as well as regular goal setting to ensure constant progress is being made.
To optimise safety and effectiveness, all AEP interventions are adapted and tailored to meet the individual needs of the worker, considering factors such as:
Response to exercise – we will monitor things like heart rate, blood pressure and rating of perceived exertion (RPE) to understand the body’s response to exercise.
Symptoms – we will consider and accommodate any associated symptoms such as immobility, weakness, fatigue or pain in the prescription of exercise.
Occupational demands – we will also work with the patient to understand when to reduce or increase exercise load to accommodate any changes in circumstances/clinical status, while also achieving their longer term functional goal of full return to work.
Services aimed at facilitating return to work provided by an AEP are covered under WorkCover/WorkSafe and most Compulsory Third Party Insurance Schemes with a Doctors Referral.
This may include any variety of services delivered at the workers home, personal gym space or within clinic consultation rooms:
Initial Physical Examination - Assessment of workers injury/condition, occupation specific roles, determination of functional goals and physical capacity to achieve them
Supervised Physical Conditioning Consultation - Delivery of targeted exercise under direct clinical supervision/guidance to optimise foundational movement and physical conditioning.
Functional Capacity Testing/Job Task Analysis - Work task specific movement analysis and posture assessment with ergonomic coaching and modifications to best suit the workers’ stage of injury rehabilitation, suitable duties determination and establishing safe lifting limits.
Group Based Rehabilitation - Group based exercise classes that involved reduced clinical supervision and promote more individual independence with their exercise based rehabilitation that can lead them on to efficient self management
If you’d like more information on any of the information above or would like a better understanding of how movement can be medicine for you, keep an eye out for more content like this or get in touch for a personalised plan of action today.