How Job Simulation Helps Injured Workers Return to Work

July 28, 2023

After an injury, therapy and rehabilitation are often prescribed as the first line of recovery. Rehabilitation clinics such as Northwest Return to Work (NWRTW) specialize in helping injured workers, and job simulation is an important factor in helping injured workers return to work. Our facility is specially designed to address the needs of all workers, helping them restore their job functions so they can eventually return to work.

This video describes a unique job simulation scenario for a worker who had the specific job of working on airplane wings. The team at NWRTW created an environment to simulate the exact task so that the worker could strengthen the necessary muscles and rebuild their confidence and capacity to do their job, eventually expediting a safe return to work. (Watch video)

The goal is to return each worker to their full-time duties, as quickly and as safely as possible. This is accomplished by simulating their jobs in the clinic. Job tasks are often broken down into component parts, to prevent de-conditioning and keeping their focus on returning to work. The same equipment is used in the clinic as on the job, whenever possible, and operates as a work environment.

Work Hardening for Job Simulation

Work Hardening is an intense, daily program that combines injury-specific rehabilitation, endurance conditioning, and job simulations. Work hardening is the step between acute therapy and returning to work. When the injured worker’s performance matches the actual job tasks, the worker can begin the process of returning to work.

At NWRTW, we can simulate just about any workplace scenario, including driving. With our driving simulator, we can assess cognitive, physical, perceptual, and emotional driving performance. The simulator allows for targeted skill practice as well as integrated and complex driving practice which allows for treatments to be highly individualized based on the specific needs of the client. Additionally, the simulator allows for the choice between multiple types of vehicles which supports the development of skills for drivers in personal vehicles as well as the vehicles they may drive for their work.

(Learn more about our driving simulator HERE).

A Functional Capacity Evaluation (FCE)

Once the worker feels confident in their tasks, an FCE is typically used to provide the best available measure of a client’s ability to meet the physical requirements of their job. The FCE provides information on a client’s engagement in the process by measuring abilities and is designed to be an objective assessment of a person’s total ability to function, including but not limited to, lifting, carrying, climbing, pushing, and pulling, and is employed at the end of rehabilitation to measure a worker’s ability to return to his/her job.

NWRTW is focused on rehabilitating and reintegrating clients into specific work settings. Combined with our staff’s expert knowledge of job simulation and our custom-designed facilities we provide a realistic, graded performance of job-specific tasks that allow our clients to practice progressively as their physical capacities improve.

Whether helping a roofer with a fear of heights re-acclimate to work on a ladder or helping a plumber with a wrist injury prepare to run pipes, we are equipped to provide the simulated work environment they need to help them get back to work and back to life.