The final phase of rehabilitation: work hardening

In addition to an individual's academic or educational preparation for a specific job or vocation, the importance of physical readiness has been recognized in the past decade. Physical readiness is particularly needed for individuals injured on the job. Work conditioning and work hardening programs have been developed by the health care community in response to this need. An understanding of the characteristics basic to work conditioning and hardening includes awareness of programmatic and philosophical differences between work programs, knowledge of the interdisciplinary team approach, the powerful rehabilitative tool of communication used by work programs particularly for goal formation, and awareness of each team member's role.