FunctionalCapacity Assessments
What Is a Functional Capacity Assessment (FCA)?
A functional capacity assessment is conducted by a qualified occupational therapist. It looks into how you function day-to day within all your occupational domains, or everything you have to ‘do’ in your day or week, including:
Everyday activities:
Functional Mobility: How you may get around your home or backyard.
Self-Care: How you go about getting yourself ready for the day, whether it be showering, grooming and getting dressed.
Sleep: How your sleep regime is.
Medication management: How you obtain and take your medication.
Household and health management activities:
Financial management: How you go about budgeting and paying.
Appointment Management/ Employment/Volunteering and Study: How you go about organising, attending and participating in your various appointments.
How you go about managing the demands associated with work and/or study.
Cleaning and gardening: How you go about managing your living space.
Meal management: How you go about ensuring that you are maintaining a healthy diet and planning and preparing your meals.
Accessing the community: How you go about getting to the places you need to go to.
Activities you do for fun:
Social and community groups: What current groups are you involved with? We are also interested in finding out any potential groups you have an interest in, but perhaps feel like something is stopping you from pursuing these.
Hobbies and Interests: Whether it is something you already do, or something you have an interest in.
We also acknowledge that mood and motivation play a big part in our ability to complete various tasks, and therefore your functional capacity assessment will also explore the impact of this on day-to-day functioning and how you go about managing these emotions.
Need a Functional Capacity Assessment in Perth? Reach Life is here to assist you in generating a detailed Functional Capacity Assessment report tailored to your needs. Our assessments serve various purposes, including those related to the NDIS, healthcare, rehabilitation, vocational rehabilitation, insurance claims, workers’ compensation, and more.
Contact us at 08 9301 5659 or email admin@reachlife.com.au.
What does a functional capacity assessment entail?
Each organisation may differ in the way they conduct a functional capacity assessment. Furthermore, each assessment will differ depending on your NDIS goals. At Reach Life, we aim to firstly complete an initial assessment followed by engaging you in a functional task.
Initial Assessment
An initial assessment is a meet and greet between yourself and your occupational therapist. We acknowledge that meeting new people can be daunting, and therefore you are welcome to have any support present that you feel comfortable with. This may be a parent, partner, family, friend or other formal support (such as a case manager or support coordinator). The initial assessment’s aim is to explain a little about what the functional capacity assessment is and how FCA can be a useful starting point to assist you in working towards your goals.
Functional Activity
Occupational therapists specialise in gaining an idea of someone’s functioning by actively engaging in an activity with them. This approach enables us to observe how you plan and execute various aspects of a specific task. By participating in the task alongside you, we can identify your strengths and abilities, as well as areas where you may encounter difficulties. This insight guides our recommendations and interventions to support you effectively.
The type of functional tasks you engage in will differ in relation to the individual and their goals. It is a task you draw up with your occupational therapist and can include anything from cooking, gardening, arts and crafts, group participation, etc.
Why is functional capacity assessment important?
A functional capacity assessment is a useful place to start once you receive your NDIS plan because it first identifies your current roles and responsibilities in everyday life. It then considers your strengths and abilities as well as where you are experiencing some difficulty in your day-to day tasks and responsibilities, which allows for targeted recommendations into areas to assist you utilise your NDIS plan in the most relevant way.
Secondly it looks at your short to long term goals and puts together recommendations and planning into the best way to go about achieving them based on your strengths and barriers faced.
So essentially, Functional Capacity Assessments:
- Look into CURRENT roles and responsibilities and identifies;
- STRENGTHS you hold and BARRIERS you face to form;
- RECOMMENDATIONS into ways to best utilise your NDIS plan to help you access supports and strategies both to maximise current functioning and
- Work toward a plan to achieve SHORT AND LONG-TERM GOALS IDENTIFIED
How long does FCA take?
This is dependent on several factors, such as:
- Travel
- Complexity
- Whether home visits are needed, and length of home visit (functional component or tasks completed during the visit)
- Family and other stakeholders that need to be interviewed
- Supporting documentation, etc.
- Report writing vs face to face time
On average, FCA’s take 10 hours- this is the recommended cap from NDIS. However, your FCA may be quicker or may take longer than this. If you are an existing client for example, it will be quicker for our OT to gather the relevant information.
Looking for a Functional Capacity Assessment in Perth? Reach Life is ready to help you create a comprehensive report tailored to your requirements. Our assessments are valuable for purposes such as the NDIS, healthcare, rehabilitation, vocational rehabilitation, insurance claims, workers’ compensation, and beyond.
Get in touch with us today by filling out the contact form below.
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