WERC

The Worker Evaluation and Restoration Center (WERC) program is a comprehensive rehabilitation program designed to assist the injured worker's return to the job. The person will return to the job not only physically capable but with knowledge of the anatomy involved and ways to avoid future injuries. Services include:

Prevention in the Workplace

• Back and Cumulative Trauma Schools: These highly-interactive training sessions leave the participants with the knowledge of how to "look at the workplace through new eyes.
• Work Place Analysis: Work with the industry to identify ways to create safer and more productive work processes through task-worker-environment analysis.
• Functional Job Descriptions: Develop specific job descriptions which detail the physical demands and essential functions of a position that are ADA compliant.
• Pre-Work Screens: Assist the employer with the development of a process in which the critical demands of the job are matched to the potential employee.

Industrial Injury Management and Treatment

The WERC program strives to successfully manage the injured worker through collaborative planning between the employee, therapist, physician, employer, and nurse case manager.

• Functional Reconditioning: Physical reactivation is a progressive exercise program that includes flexibility, strengthening and cardiovascular conditioning. This exercise-based program is geared to return the injured worker back to the appropriate functional level for a successful return to the work place.
• Functional Capacity Evaluation (FCE): The FCE is a test designed to measure an injured worker's physical abilities and match those abilities to the specific tasks of the job. This objective test allows the therapist (not the patient) to evaluate the precise physical and functional abilities.

Workplace Re-integration

Once the individual is ready to return to work, the therapist may accompany him/her back to the job for on-site therapy interventions. These may include:

• Exercise to be performed on-site to continue strengthening, decrease fatigue, and improve work tolerances.
• Coaching regarding safe biomechanical work practices during actual job tasks.
• Evaluation of possible job modifications to accommodate functional deficits.

Staff

Wes Priestley, PT
Senior Therapist
U.S. Army/Baylor University 1977

Gail Robertson, Case Manager
UT Knoxville 1985