Functional performance assessment: a program approach.

An interdisciplinary method of functional assessment is presented utilizing the Patient Evaluation Conference System, or PECS (Harvey and Jellinek, 1979), which has been successfully applied to a medical rehabilitation setting to guide treatment and to assess program effectiveness. Our method requires that functional performance items be evaluated in terms of progress using an 8-point, 0 to 7 scale, 0 representing unmeasured or unmeasurable function, and 7 representing fully independent or normal function. Rehabilitation outcomes of 4 or below present varying degrees of dependent function, and outcomes of 5 or more represent degrees of independent function. Data are presented which demonstrate level of gain, goal-setting effectiveness, and degree of independent function.