Tools & Resources To Get You Started As An OT Driver Rehabilitation Specialist

It’s exciting to become an Occupational Therapist Driver Rehabilitation Specialist (OT DRS). But it can be hard to figure out what tools, tests, and resources you need to get started. Having the right resources ensures you can provide safe and effective driver rehabilitation services. Here is a list of important things that will help you get your practice started.

Cognitive Assessment

Evaluating cognitive skills is essential to the world of driver rehabilitation. These assessments help you understand a patient’s attention, memory, problem-solving, and executive functioning. All of these are key abilities for safe driving.

Tools we recommend include:

• Brief Cognitive Assessment Tool (BCAT)
• Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA)
• Snellgrove Maze Test: Free in the Clinician’s Guide
• Trail Making Test A & B

Vision Assessment

Visual abilities, such as acuity, visual fields, depth perception, contrast sensitivity, are critical to safe driving. Even small visual limitations can have an impact on patient performance when they are behind the wheel.

Tools we recommend include:

• Snellen Chart, under $20 in many cases
• Stereo Fly or Stereo Butterfly
• Colenbrander Mixed Contrast Card
• biVABA, for working with brain injuries
• Zoltan’s Vision, Perception, and Cognition book

Overall, Precision Vision offers great tools for your vision assessment needs, including different versions of charts and cards to fit your individual patient needs.

Motor And Reaction Time Assessment

By closely examining your patients’ motor skills and reaction time, you can be sure that they can safely use the controls of a vehicle.

Tools we recommend include:

• Advanced Therapy Products Reaction Time Tester
• 5.07 Monofilament, usually about $10–15 online for sensory testing
• Tape measure for range-of-motion assessments
• Senior Fitness Test Manual for functional mobility evaluations

Vehicle Equipment

In many cases, hands-on training and accurate patient assessments require specialized vehicle equipment.

We recommend products and vendors such as:

• Ohio Safety Brake
• Student Driver Products
  • Drill-less brake
  • Eye check mirror
  • Student driver signs
• Mobility Innovations
• MPS Guidosimplex Mobility Products
• SureGrip Howell Ventures, LTD

Documentation, Scheduling, & Billing

Good management is very important for an OT DRS practice to be successful. Having a system in place keeps your practice organized, from making appointments to handling referrals and bills.

We recommend Practice Q to streamline your documentation and scheduling.

Getting Started With Confidence

It’s very important to have the right tools, but it’s also important to know how to use them well and how to apply the results to real-world driving. This takes training and guidance. That’s where Adaptive Mobility comes in.

Susie Touchinsky and the Adaptive Mobility team train and mentor OTs who are moving into driver rehabilitation. They will help you with:

• choosing and using the right tools for assessment
• performing evaluations on the road safely
• learning about adaptive equipment
• creating a successful and confident OT DRS practice

You can offer safe and effective driver rehabilitation services while also improving your professional skills and career options if you have the right tools and expert advice.