Rehabilitation goal setting icn rehabilitation

It has become increasingly important in catastrophic injury litigation to make sure that their case manager has set and is setting goals and targets, and that they are designed so that performance can be monitored, and success or failure detected. Case management is a very expensive process, and money can be wasted very quickly and easily.

A goal is an aim or purpose. Goals can and should be set by the injured person (and his or her family) and the case manager. Another definition would be: a statement of desired outcomes to which effort is directed. It follows that it probably will be important to analyse the goals and the ways in which they could or should be achieved, as well as how to recognise achievement.

It should be a process involving discussion between the interested parties, during which the injured person will ask him or herself how he can help others to understand his or her needs, and the others will do their best to formulate that question for the client and for themselves. Rehabilitation is a multi-disciplinary, and many faceted process, and all those involved should be centred round the injured person, making sure that goals are always in mind, and always pursued and monitored.

Goals should not be so vague that progress towards achieving them is impossible to measure.

For example, if a person suffers from bad temper as a result of a traumatic brain injury, it should be possible to identify the problem (outbursts of temper), the extent (e.g. ten times a day), the method of trying to rehabilitate the patient out of it (anger management, different staff, different prompts or activities), and the desired outcome (fewer or no outbursts daily – measured by a log or diary).