Occupational therapy assessments, also called functional capacity assessments, are used by occupational therapists to measure your ability to do everyday tasks.
Doing an assessment is an important step for your occupational therapist to gather information about you and your current abilities and limitations, and where you need support or intervention.
Depending on your illness, injury, condition, or disability, an assessment might measure physical function, like how far you can walk without needing to stop, or it might measure cognitive capacity, like memory.
Assessments can cover many aspects, including fine motor skills, gross motor skills, visual perceptual skills, sensory integration, executive functioning and self-care skills.
Why are occupational therapy assessments important and what are they used for?
An occupational therapy assessment (also called an OT assessment) is essential to your occupational therapy treatment for several reasons. We go into each reason in detail below.
Understanding where you need help
Occupational therapy assessments can help an occupational therapist to identify where you’re facing challenges, and to put together your treatment plan.
The assessment will highlight any physical, cognitive, sensory, or environmental barriers that may affect daily functioning.
This essential when you start receiving treatment, as the information from the assessment will help the occupational therapist to get to know your functional deficits (where you want to improve your function).
The assessment will also help you and your occupational therapist to develop your SMART goals, depending on what is important to you, and then work out the interventions that will help you to get there.
Interventions might include:
Aids or equipment
Hands-on treatment, for soft-tissue injury, or loss of soft-tissue function
Exercises to improve fine motor or gross motor skills
Socioemotional skills, psychoeducational and coping skills
Pain and fatigue management
Teaching self-management and adapting to new ways of living
Removing barriers to local community interaction and meaningful activities.
Types of Assessments
Functional Capacity Assessments (FCA): Evaluate an individual’s ability to perform work-related tasks and determine appropriate accommodations or support.
Sensory Assessments: Assess how sensory processing issues affect daily activities and recommend strategies to improve sensory integration.
Home Safety Assessments: Evaluate the safety and accessibility of the home environment, recommending modifications to enhance safety and independence.
Cognitive Assessments: Evaluate cognitive functions like memory, attention, and problem-solving skills, helping to create strategies to manage cognitive impairments.
The assessment gives your occupational therapist evidence on which to base their recommendations.
Referring other professionals
Standardised assessments can help your occupational therapist to see when it might be helpful for you to see a different type of medical professional in addition to your occupational therapy.
Standardised assessments also make it much easier for a new treating professional to understand your case and your functional status.
Benchmarking to measure progress
Occupational therapy assessments can help your occupational therapist to measure and monitor your progress in different areas. This is helpful to make sure your treatment plan is working – or, if you’re not making the expected progress, to suggest it might be time to try a different type of intervention.
Your occupational therapist will usually use an assessment tool when you first see them to create a benchmark – a record of your functional capacity before you begin treatment. Then they will use the same tool again at intervals to see how your functional status has changed.
Tools used for this purpose are called ‘outcome measurement tools’ because they enable the occupational therapist to compare the clinical outcome, or the improvement.
Most therapy plans include goals, and the outcome measure will enable you to see how you are tracking against your goals.
This outcome tracking also enables you to decide if you are happy with the occupational therapy you are receiving.
Evidence of functional capacity
If you are applying for the NDIS, education support, disability support, or workers’ compensation insurance (for example), you may need to provide evidence about your functional capacity.
An occupational therapist can do a functional assessment report that shows their assessment of your capacity, so that you can provide this with your application or claim.
Read on for more information about NDIS assessments later in this article.
Discharge from therapy
A functional assessment can also tell you when you no longer need occupational therapy!
If your assessment shows that you are meeting your goals and you have the ability to do your everyday tasks then your occupational therapist will discharge you from treatment, usually with appropriate support (such as a check-in down the track) and information (such as what to do if you experience any loss of function in future).
OT assessment tools
Occupational therapists can use a range of assessment tools, many developed for specific conditions, and others more general. Some are questionnaire-style, and others are based on your occupational therapist’s observations.
There are specialised assessment tools for psychological conditions, intellectual and developmental disabilities, for traumatic brain injury, and for various types of physical condition. Some tools are designed for a specific age group, such as children.
Common assessments measure cognitive capacity, sensory processing, fine motor skills, gross motor skills, or the ability to perform various functional activities, but there are literally hundreds of occupational therapy assessment tools for different purposes.
Choosing the right assessment tool, or combination of tools, is important. Occupational therapists are trained to use a range of different assessment tools and to know which ones are most relevant in your situation.
No matter which tool they use, occupational therapists are trained to consider your whole situation, considering your medical, physiological, social and psychological function.
The advantage of using a standardised assessment is that it is applied consistently and can be used to measure your function over time.
Your occupational therapist will use their expertise to select the right tool for your situation. Often occupational therapists also have specific training in how to use a tool before they can administer it.
Common occupational therapy assessment tools
For children, occupational therapy assessments more commonly focus on motor skills (such as the Beery VMI or the Peabody developmental motor scales) or sensory processing (such as Sensory Profile 2 or Sensory Processing Measure).
In adults, common assessments look at executive function, engagement in meaningful occupations and engagement in everyday activities. Tools include Canadian Occupational Performance Measure, Katz Index of Independence in Activities of Daily Living, Stroke Impact Scale and Executive Function Performance Test.
NDIS assessment tools
The NDIS has identified certain standardised assessment tools it recognises and prefers for use in independent assessments of functional capacity. These tools are:
School age (7- 17) years:
Pediatric Evaluation of Disability Inventory computer adaptive test (PEDICAT) – PEDICAT (Speedy) or PEDICAT ASD (Speedy)
Vineland 3 Domain Version
Participation and Environment Measure- for Children and Youth (PEM-CY)
Adults (18 years +):
WHODAS 2.0 36 Question
Lower Extremity Function Scale (where applicable)
Vineland 3 Domain Version
Craig Hospital Inventory of Environmental Factors (CHIEF)
Only ‘suitably qualified people,’ such qualified occupational therapists, can use these tools.
The NDIS states that the reason for focusing on just these tools is to conduct independent assessments in an equitable and consistent manner.
This doesn’t mean that your occupational therapist can’t use other assessment tools as part of your treatment (in fact, they probably will use other tools) – it just means the NDIS prefers to use these tools specifically for your NDIS independent assessment.
What happens in an occupational therapy assessment?
An occupational therapy functional assessment involves your occupational therapist using a standard format to record your level of ability to do different activities.
Exactly what the assessment entails depends very much on your condition and the assessment tool your occupational therapist has chose to use.
Many assessment tools involve your occupational therapist asking you lots of questions and recording your answers.
Other assessments involve your occupational therapist asking you to do a range of different tasks, while they observe and take notes.
Occupational therapy assessments can done in person, or by telehealth (video conferencing or over the phone).
In-person assessments could be at the occupational therapist’s clinic or in hospital, or at your home, school or workplace, depending on the situation.
How long does an occupational therapy assessment take?
The time an occupational therapy assessment takes to complete depends on the complexity of your situation and the assessment tool your occupational therapist is using, but generally 1 to 2 hours is sufficient time.
The occupational therapist will then take additional time to write up your report.
How to prepare for an occupational therapy assessment
There’s not too much you need to do ahead of an occupational therapy assessment, but it might be helpful to:
Gather any medical reports or existing assessments you think might be useful.
Think about your daily activities and the things you find most difficult, as well as your goals and the areas in which you would most like to improve – you might want to write these down if you think you might forget them in the session.
Wear comfy clothes for your assessment.
Be prepared to answer lots of questions and do many tasks for your occupational therapist as part of the assessment.
How can we help?
Goal Coach’s occupational therapists are ready to help you tackle the tasks that are hard for you and to get you on the way to achieving your goals in life. You can get started straight away with a free 15-minute chat with one of our team members to discuss your situation and how we can help.
