Replication of maximal work output levels in able-bodied workers and candidates for disability assessments: benchmark data and guidelines

Abstract

[From the introduction]: Injured-at-work employees, when the impairments are musculo-skeletal, and the injury beyond dispute, may be faced with formal rehabilitation or informal recuperation, sometimes preceded by surgical intervention, or they may be exposed to a process of application for compensation, part of which may involve medico-legal assessments. Questions that need to be addressed somewhere in this process will determine whether the impairment is of short duration, chronic or irreparable, and will involve determination also of the severity of the impairment and the issue of the workers’ capacity to return to the former occupation versus the need to find a new employment niche commensurate with the disabled workers’ capabilities. Inevitably in this process, if it is formal, someone will need to assess the musculoskeletal strength of the injured employee and make pronouncements as to physical capacity and work-readiness. In the absence of clinical ergonomists in South Africa this task falls to a variety of professionals, some well and others poorly trained to make these determinations. Most often the assessments of work-readiness are crude, amounting to little more than unsubstantiable value judgements of supervisors or health professionals not well versed in human performance capabilities. Increasingly however, better qualified professionals are making themselves available to meet the growing demands of a more employee-centred working ethos in this country. This paper is targeted at those medical, paramedical and ergonomics professionals who already have the facilities and the expertise to make use of the technique outlined herein, to further enhance their already sound means of job-related disability assessment