COMPLEX injury management is one of the most challenging areas within vocational rehabilitation. It can often take years for rehabilitation providers to feel comfortable and competent providing rehabilitation support for clients with serious injuries, such as amputations, paraplegia and quadriplegia.

But not David Coleopy, a senior Occupational Therapist with Adelaide based provider, Applied Innovative Services.

Despite only entering the vocational rehabilitation field in February last year, David has demonstrated a capacity to provide quality, effective vocational rehabilitation for people with serious injuries. Such is his success that he was presented with the Individual Service Provider Achievement Award at the South Australian WorkCover Recovery and Return to Work Awards earlier this month.

Speaking to Return to Work Matters after his award win, David pin-pointed his number one tip for successful rehabilitation - “getting support in early”.

David said this was the case for the client whose family nominated him for the award.

“I saw him within a few weeks after his injury – it was important that we were working together right from the start, involving him, his family, his employer and prospective employers,” David said.

Constant consultation and communication in the early stages was a key factor in ensuring every client maintains motivation and avoids “getting stuck in a rut”, according to David.

“Not being left alone for long periods of time is one of the most important things, particularly with the serious injury stuff that I work with,” he said.

The majority of clients on David's caseload have serious injuries, such as brain injury, amputation, multiple trauma, paraplegia or quadriplegia. But these injuries are not new conditions to David.

Prior to moving into the vocational rehabilitation field, he had seven years experience working as a clinical occupational therapist in medical settings such as acute hospital in-patient facilities and rehabilitation centres, in both Australia and London. It is this experience and knowledge which David believes assists his work as a vocational rehabilitation provider.

The majority of his clients will still in the primary stages of treatment or under the care of surgeons and any number of other treating practitioners when he first becomes involved. Because of this David believes his ability to communicate and develop a partnership with these providers assists the vocational rehabilitation process.

“I understand what their goals for treatment are and I can communicate with them about what they're doing and what I'm doing,” he said. “Being able to speak on the same level and have the same understanding of these cases is a huge benefit.”

He would also recommend other allied health practitioners gain clinical experience before moving into vocational rehabilitation.

“Given the range of injuries we can be presented with, I think it would be good for a lot of other (vocational rehabilitation) OTs and physios to have that understanding,” he said.

David is also a believer in the 'do unto others' principle.

“I try to treat each person I work with like I'd want to be treated,” he said.

But to do this requires lots of support and frequent contact with the injured person and all other relevant parties in the rehabilitation process. Which means, for David, high caseloads are out of the question.

“I try to keep my case load fairly manageable,” he said. “It's easy to keep taking on cases, but then the quality of the service you're providing to the people currently on your case list suffers.”

Another key aspect of David's approach to rehabilitation and injury management is the involvement of family members, who are frequently impacted by a person's injury – particularly serious injury.

“In most of the cases I've dealt with, it affects the family as well,” David said. “All the roles in the family change. People become carers, they often have to leave their job or go part time. It changes the whole family dynamic.”

Keeping the family involved can help achieve a more positive outcome, David says, because it is the family who has the most constant contact with the injured person.

While a rehabilitation provider may see the injured person “once a week or a fortnight”, having a family which is aware of and involved in the rehabilitation process can keep the worker motivated and focused on their recovery on a “day to day” basis.

But while David reinforces the importance of clinical knowledge, early intervention, communication and family involvement, ultimately, he says successful outcomes come down to one thing.

“At the end of the day, it mostly comes down to the individual themselves,” he said. “Unless they're motivated and keen to help themselves...we're only able to do so much.

“With a lot of the successful outcomes I've had, a lot of the credit has got to go to the person themselves, for making the decision to get up and accept the help they've been provided with. They've done all the hard work – I've just assisted them along the way.”