In completing this Checklist the patient, with your support, is making an assessment of their current strengths, needs and abilities. As a Keyworker you will need to use your professional knowledge of spinal cord injury to support the patient in responding to the questions in each area.
Where the nature of a patient’s injury makes physical independence impossible, the rating should be based on the patient’s level of verbal independence, i.e. the extent to which the patient is able to instruct staff/carers in carrying out the activity in question. HOWEVER, if it is predicted that the patient will be physically independent on discharge (rather than verbally) then you should score according to what the patient can physically achieve now, rather than what he/she can verbally achieve at the present time. Please indicate throughout the assessment whether you have used the physical (or verbal) scale.