OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH

Physical and Occupational Therapy for Employers and their Employees

Cascade Health’s physical and occupational therapists can help your injured workers return to work faster. Representing a wide range of therapeutic specialties, they provide personal, timely, flexible rehabilitative care that can alleviate pain, speed recovery, restore function and reduce the risk of reinjury. 

Contact us to learn more about our physical and occupational therapy services and how they can have a dramatic impact on workers’ quality of life — and your bottom line. 

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Some of the most common workplace injuries — those due to trauma, repetitive motion and overexertion — are associated with the greatest impact on a worker’s ability to function and the highest costs to employers. 

Luckily, they are also the injuries most likely to benefit from physical and occupational therapy. At Cascade Health, our team of physical and occupational therapists has extensive experience helping people with workplace injuries. We focus on restoring injured workers’ highest and returning them to work faster. 

Knowledgeable, licensed and compassionate, our therapists work closely with the treating physician to create, monitor and adjust an integrated, multidisciplinary treatment plan to achieve recovery goals. Because we work with multiple therapies and represent numerous specialties, we can match injured workers to the therapist best able to help them reach their unique goals.

Injury Rehabilitation Specialists

We Treat

✅ Repetitive motion injuries (carpal tunnel, tendinitis, bursitis)

✅ Back injury and pain

✅ Strains

✅ Fractures

✅ Post-surgery recovery

✅ Hand injuries

✅ Arthritis pain

✅ Wound care 

✅ Wrist, arm and shoulder injuries

Specialties

✅ Hand therapy

✅ Orthopedic therapy

✅ Pelvic floor therapy

✅ Oncology physical therapy

✅ Osteopathic physical therapy

Common Therapies

✅ Therapeutic and strength-building exercise programs

✅ Hot/cold treatment

✅ Paraffin bath

✅ Ultrasound

✅ Laser treatment

✅ Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS)

✅ Manual manipulation

✅ Matrix Repatterning

✅ Massage

✅ Ergonomic training

✅ Custom orthotics

✅ Biofeedback

The quicker a worker starts a physical or occupational therapy regiment, the better the health outcomes. But employers stand to benefit from an early therapy approach, as well. Giving injured employees early access to physical and occupational therapy:

✅ Reduces the use of and payment per claim for medical services by 24-28%.

✅ Shortens the duration of temporary disability benefits an average of 63%.

✅ Reduced the likely need for surgery, injections and opioid medications, reducing the cost of treatment by 72% within one year.

✅ Reduces the risk of re-injury, including repetitive motion injuries that result in an average of 3 times the number of days away from work as compared to other injuries.

✅ Reduces employer turnover costs — typically 1.5 to 2 times the employee’s salary — due to a higher retention of injured employees.

When Should a Worker Start PT or OT?

Many workplace injuries are preventable with the right tools and training. In addition to effective injury treatment, we can help you institute effective injury prevention measures in your workplace. Our services include:

Job Analysis

Job analysis is an in-depth study of the physical demands of a specific job and the environmental factors that impact it. We visit the workplace to observe and identify risk factors for injury, then make recommendations about how to prevent them.

Ergonomic Assessment

Useful for preventing overexertion and repetitive motion injuries, ergonomic assessments identify how the physical work area and work methods could be improved to reduce injury. We can also create employee training programs to help workers learn proper body mechanics to reduce the likelihood of injury.

Warm-Up Programs

Preparing the body for physical activity can reduce the risk of certain injuries. We can hep develop a warm-up and stretching program to help your employees avoid strain and relive tension throughout the day.

We Help Prevent Injuries

Physical and occupational therapy share some similarities, in that both are rehabilitative services that can help improve workers’ quality of life and play a role in getting your employees back to work quickly after an injury. However, they have slightly different focuses: 

Physical Therapy

Physical therapy is focused on optimizing movement and musculoskeletal health after an injury or illness. This is typically accomplished through a combination of exercise, education and manual manipulation to:

  • Reduce pain

  • Restore mobility and range of motion

  • Build strength and endurance

  • Avoid re-injury, surgery or prescription pain medications

Occupational Therapy

Occupational therapy is focused on helping people recover from injuries or illnesses that have impacted their ability to perform daily and work activities. For injured workers, this often takes the form of re-learning and restoring abilities, such as:

  • Developing fine motor skills, like using a pen or tool

  • Learning to use adaptive equipment or strategies to complete work in different ways

  • Regaining strength lost to lack of use

  • Improving hand-eye coordination

  • Training in proper body mechanics, such as lifting, pulling and pushing techniques, to reduce chances of re-injury

  • Return-to-work transition planning

Depending on a worker’s injury(ies) and individual needs, a medical provider may refer them to one, the other or both types of therapy. 

P.T. vs. O.T.: What’s the Difference?