Exploring certified hand therapists' roles in workplace injury prevention, treatment, rehabilitation and collaboration with occupational safety professionals.
{"title":"Exploring certified hand therapists' roles in workplace injury prevention, treatment, rehabilitation and collaboration with occupational safety professionals.","authors":"A. Belyayev, Todd D. Smith","doi":"10.3233/wor-211038","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"BACKGROUND\nCertified Hand Therapy is a subset of occupational/physical therapy that is relatively unknown to the common individual. Certified Hand Therapists (CHTs) help those with upper extremity injuries, whether it be those with workplace injuries, those who suffered a traumatic injury or those recovering from major surgery to reach the point where they are able to be independent and back to doing daily life activities.\n\n\nOBJECTIVE\nThis study aimed to discern the roles that Certified Hand Therapists have in rehabilitating individuals with upper extremity injuries, to assess their participation in work-related injury prevention, to examine with whom CHTs interact with during the rehabilitation process, and to gain insight into how the relationships between CHTs and occupational safety professionals can be improved.\n\n\nMETHODS\nStructured interviews were conducted with eight occupational therapists who are Certified Hand Therapists or are in the process of being certified. Interviews were recorded, transcribed and analyzed to determine themes relative to the study objectives.\n\n\nRESULTS\nContent analyses determined trends in job roles, interactions with occupational safety professionals, the importance of patient education in prevention and rehabilitation and barriers to effective treatment of work-related injuries.\n\n\nCONCLUSION\nCHTs shared similar thoughts regarding their profession. CHTs revealed common themes in the eight interviews conducted. Specifically, many CHTs believe education is a vital part of the profession in terms of improving the profession and in the rehabilitation process. In addition, patient compliance and the current workers' compensation system were seen as challenges when rehabilitating patients.","PeriodicalId":49090,"journal":{"name":"Cognition Technology & Work","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.4000,"publicationDate":"2022-06-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Cognition Technology & Work","FirstCategoryId":"5","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3233/wor-211038","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ENGINEERING, INDUSTRIAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Certified Hand Therapy is a subset of occupational/physical therapy that is relatively unknown to the common individual. Certified Hand Therapists (CHTs) help those with upper extremity injuries, whether it be those with workplace injuries, those who suffered a traumatic injury or those recovering from major surgery to reach the point where they are able to be independent and back to doing daily life activities.
OBJECTIVE
This study aimed to discern the roles that Certified Hand Therapists have in rehabilitating individuals with upper extremity injuries, to assess their participation in work-related injury prevention, to examine with whom CHTs interact with during the rehabilitation process, and to gain insight into how the relationships between CHTs and occupational safety professionals can be improved.
METHODS
Structured interviews were conducted with eight occupational therapists who are Certified Hand Therapists or are in the process of being certified. Interviews were recorded, transcribed and analyzed to determine themes relative to the study objectives.
RESULTS
Content analyses determined trends in job roles, interactions with occupational safety professionals, the importance of patient education in prevention and rehabilitation and barriers to effective treatment of work-related injuries.
CONCLUSION
CHTs shared similar thoughts regarding their profession. CHTs revealed common themes in the eight interviews conducted. Specifically, many CHTs believe education is a vital part of the profession in terms of improving the profession and in the rehabilitation process. In addition, patient compliance and the current workers' compensation system were seen as challenges when rehabilitating patients.
期刊介绍:
Cognition, Technology & Work focuses on the practical issues of human interaction with technology within the context of work and, in particular, how human cognition affects, and is affected by, work and working conditions.
The aim is to publish research that normally resides on the borderline between people, technology, and organisations. Including how people use information technology, how experience and expertise develop through work, and how incidents and accidents are due to the interaction between individual, technical and organisational factors.
The target is thus the study of people at work from a cognitive systems engineering and socio-technical systems perspective.
The most relevant working contexts of interest to CTW are those where the impact of modern technologies on people at work is particularly important for the users involved as well as for the effects on the environment and plants. Modern society has come to depend on the safe and efficient functioning of a multitude of technological systems as diverse as industrial production, transportation, communication, supply of energy, information and materials, health and finance.