functional measurement

functional measurement, the processes by which medical professionals evaluate disability and determine the need for occupational therapy or physical rehabilitation. Functional measurement refers specifically to quantifying an individual’s performance of particular tasks and activities in the context of specified social and physical environments. Many of those measurements are focused on the completion of tasks and activities that relate to work or to caring for oneself, collectively known as “activities of daily living.”

Given that individuals have a dynamic and personal relationship with the environments they inhabit, functional measurements involve many factors, including personal capabilities (knowledge, skills, abilities, and attitudes), the particular demands of the task to be performed, and the setting in which the performance takes place. In practice, individual performance can be influenced by improving the person’s capabilities (through accommodation or some other rehabilitation strategy), by altering the task to reduce or eliminate unnecessary demands, or by modifying the setting to remove environmental barriers. Rehabilitation and vocational specialists engaged in improving client performance and reducing disability use all of those strategies.

Historical foundation

The concept of functional measurement has evolved as views regarding compensation for injury and rehabilitation have become more sophisticated. Toward the beginning of the 20th century, disability was primarily considered a “defect with a cash value.” Honoured workers (such as those in the military or civil service) were compensated for injuries that occurred on the job. At that time, assessment was limited to determination of impairment, and the resulting compensation was rather crude, involving a set cash payment for different types of impairments. For example, the loss of vision in one eye could result in a different payment from that for the loss of function in an arm.

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Workers are still compensated for their injuries, although the method of calculating benefits has changed substantially. During the middle of the 20th century, medical professionals began teaching injured workers to use and adapt residual capacities to work in order to reach their maximum vocational potential. The primary reason for that rehabilitation and accommodation was the large numbers of casualties resulting from World War I and World War II and the increasing numbers of automobile accidents. Advances in medical science and technology allowed people to survive injuries that had previously resulted in death. The remarkable change in rehabilitation during that period was the acceptance of a holistic philosophy. That philosophy held that the mind and body accomplish tasks in an integrated way and that one cannot obtain a clear picture of the capacity to perform tasks or activities by measuring the functioning of body structures alone. Instead, the focus of assessment shifted to the “whole” person. During that period, there was a proliferation of functional assessment instruments that focused on key activities of daily living, such as eating, dressing, and bathing.

The end of the 20th century saw profound changes in rehabilitation. Advances in rehabilitation medicine led to improvements in patient capacity following injury or disease. Disability began to be understood as a limitation in performing the roles and tasks expected of an individual within a social environment and was thus understood as referring to an individual’s performance of activities related to social roles. In 1980 the term disability was further formalized with the introduction of the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) International Classification of Impairments, Disabilities, and Handicaps in 1980. As researchers and clinicians set about “measuring” disability, the concept of functional measurement began to take shape.

Purposes of functional measurement

There are two principal purposes for conducting functional measurements. The first is to facilitate individuals’ reintegration back into their living environment following injury, disease, or disorder. Rehabilitation or vocational specialists gather information about their client’s home and work environments to discover ways to improve the individual’s ability to complete important daily tasks. In that case, functional measurement refers to the collection of information about the dynamic characteristics of the individual, including personal activities, capacities, environmental conditions, and needs. Together, that information is used to plan for the individual’s reintegration back into familiar work and living environments. Rehabilitation strategies can range from new surgery or therapy to remodeling the home to accommodate incapacity due to permanent impairment. Vocational strategies can vary from retraining the individual to do a current or previous job to remodeling the work environment or training for a new job. All of those actions reduce disability.

Analogous to that purpose is habilitation, which concerns integration, as opposed to reintegration, into increasingly demanding situations or environments. Habilitation most often relates to the education of children and youths with disabilities. The goal is to reduce the potentially disabling effects of the increasing demands associated with adult living through education. Functional measures provide a means for understanding educational needs.

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The second purpose for conducting functional measurements is to facilitate decisions about access to relief under various laws. Functional measures provide critical information about whether a claimant meets the legal definition of disability and is thereby eligible for benefits under a particular law. Although the definitions are somewhat different under each law, they all require some functional measure of a claimant’s ability to meet the demands of age-appropriate daily living requirements. For example, disability under the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) is narrowly defined and reserved only for individuals who cannot perform work now or in the foreseeable future. A determination of work disability leads to an award of monetary and health benefits. Given that the consequences of the decision for the individual and for society are costly, disability determination under governmental social security programs is a formal and often lengthy process involving careful assessment of a claimant’s capacity for engaging in previous work or any available work available. If the impairment is severe, then the claimant is judged unable to engage in substantial gainful activity and is awarded benefits.

Disability is sometimes “presumed” on the basis of an assessment of impairment alone. In those cases, the impairment is considered so severe that it is not necessary to assess the environmental consequences of the impairment. For example, individuals with Down syndrome who have a measured intelligence quotient in the low 50s are presumed to be disabled. That decision is based on accumulated knowledge that such persons face serious barriers to gaining control over their environment and will not be able to take on expected social roles. Such individuals will largely require supervision in the conduct of daily living tasks and activities requiring higher levels of language, problem solving, and judgment.