Assessing Function The ability to function normally depends upon the patient's ability to respond to the demands of the environment and to his own needs quickly, efficiently and effectively. To do this, he must be able to receive and process sensory information and to be able to react to this information by producing well coordinated bodily movements. The ability to achieve this state depends upon the availability of a mature and healthy nervous system and healthy muscles working over mobile joints in a pain-free manner.
Damage to the sensory motor activities of the nervous system, or in the muscles or joints, will inevitably lead to impairment of function by either the production of abnormal and, possibly, uneconomical movements or, total loss of functional ability. Thus assessment of function must include not only whether the patient can achieve a function, but how he does so. The…
