A practical approach to selection of assessment tools, functional evaluation, clinical reasoning, and formulation of opinion, conclusions and recommendations for individuals with ABI in order to determine work capacity, work readiness, determination of treatment planning and return to work goals.  An Evaluation Process Model will be utilized to guide the evaluator through key clinical steps and considerations.

While traditional FCE protocols typically address physical disability and its effect on function, physical durability and employability, they do not naturally accommodate the variety of condition-specific variables typically found in those who have been classified with mild, moderate and severe traumatic brain injury. Following completion of this course, you will be able to adapt your approach to functional evaluation to include consideration of relevant physical, functional cognitive, perceptual / sensory, communicative, social, regulatory, and psycho-emotional issues.  The primary objective of this course is to develop skills for planning, performing and documenting safe, reliable and defensible FCE's for individuals with ABI.

Clinical Review, Planning and Evaluation

As with all evaluations, appropriate and flexible assessment planning is critical. Building on knowledge of the functional effects of brain injury, participants will learn how to clinically review medical information, establish an appropriate mix of assessment tools, determine evaluation duration and environment, and synthesize results in order to make conclusions and provide recommendations.  This includes the integration of clinical observations, standardized and non-standardized functional cognitive testing in a variety of contexts.

Effort, Reliability and Validity

For the experienced evaluator these topics are familiar and well established as part of functional capacity evaluation.  However, injury sequelae following head trauma can require additional considerations with regard to evaluation of effort, consistency of client performance and reliability of client self-report.