ABSTRACT
The aim of the pilot project was to provide all those involved employees, employers, occupational physicians, family doctors, specialists, health insurance and pension-fund insurers with a network of medical, psychological, social and occupational professionals to survey performance-challenged employees and to make recommendations for a professional disability management program. The disability management model developed in the 1990s in Canada and Australia after the establishment of the National Institutes of Disability Management and Research (NIDMAR), is finding growing acceptance worldwide. An essential element was a multidisciplinary assessment of the illness/injury/disability using specialist orthopaedics, internal medicine, occupational and social medicine and sports medicine, with an objective demonstration of reduced capacity and function according to the bio-psychosocial criteria of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF). The FCE test was accompanied by a self-assessment of physical ability, using the spinal function sort-performance assessment and capacity testing (PACT) developed by the Swiss Working Group for Rehabilitation.
