Conduct physical tests, such as functional capacity evaluations, to determine injured workers' capabilities to perform the physical demands of their jobs.

“Conduct physical tests, such as functional capacity evaluations, to determine injured workers' capabilities to perform the physical demands of their jobs.” is a core task performed by Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Physicians. Among the occupation's 15 rated tasks, workers place it 1st by importance (#15 most important). About 70% of workers say it is relevant to their job.

This is a single occupation-specific task statement from O*NET. The figures below describe how central the task is to the job and what independent studies measure about AI and this kind of work — not a prediction that the task will be automated.

Work activities this task rolls up to

O*NET groups concrete tasks into broader work activities shared across many occupations.

• Examine people or animals to assess health conditions or physical characteristics. in Inspecting Equipment, Structures, or Materials

AI exposure

The OpenAI / Eloundou “GPTs are GPTs” study rates this task E0. No direct exposure — current language models give little or no time savings on this task.

Exposure measures whether a model could meaningfully speed the task up — it is an estimate of overlap with model capabilities, not a measure of whether the work will be done by software. The study's intermediate score (β) for this task is 0.00. Automation potential label: T1.

Other tasks in this occupation

• Document examination results, treatment plans, and patients' outcomes. · importance 4.7
• Examine patients to assess mobility, strength, communication, or cognition. · importance 4.7
• Assess characteristics of patients' pain, such as intensity, location, or duration, using standardized clinical measures. · importance 4.6
• Provide inpatient or outpatient medical management of neuromuscular disorders, musculoskeletal trauma, acute and chronic pain, deformity or amputation, cardiac or pulmonary disease, or other disabling conditions. · importance 4.6
• Monitor effectiveness of pain management interventions, such as medication or spinal injections. · importance 4.5
• Develop comprehensive plans for immediate and long-term rehabilitation, including therapeutic exercise, speech and occupational therapy, counseling, cognitive retraining, patient, family or caregiver education, or community reintegration. · importance 4.5
• Coordinate physical medicine and rehabilitation services with other medical activities. · importance 4.4
• Prescribe physical therapy to relax the muscles and improve strength. · importance 4.3
• Perform electrodiagnosis, including electromyography, nerve conduction studies, or somatosensory evoked potentials of neuromuscular disorders or damage. · importance 4.3
• Consult or coordinate with other rehabilitative professionals, including physical and occupational therapists, rehabilitation nurses, speech pathologists, neuropsychologists, behavioral psychologists, social workers, or medical technicians. · importance 4.3
• Prescribe therapy services, such as electrotherapy, ultrasonography, heat or cold therapy, hydrotherapy, debridement, short-wave or microwave diathermy, and infrared or ultraviolet radiation, to enhance rehabilitation. · importance 4.2
• Instruct interns and residents in the diagnosis and treatment of temporary or permanent physically disabling conditions. · importance 4.2
• Diagnose or treat performance-related conditions, such as sports injuries or repetitive-motion injuries. · importance 4.1
• Prescribe orthotic and prosthetic applications and adaptive equipment, such as wheelchairs, bracing, or communication devices, to maximize patient function and self-sufficiency. · importance 3.9

See all tasks on the Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Physicians page.

Sources for this page

Every figure above traces to a named public dataset and the exact release below — not hand-written opinion. See the full methodology for what each measure does and does not mean.

• O*NET 30.3 U.S. Department of Labor / National Center for O*NET Development
• “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130 OpenAI / academic

Data compiled June 2, 2026. Figures are estimates, not advice.

@misc{singulariki-task-17197,
  title  = {Conduct physical tests, such as functional capacity evaluations, to determine injured workers' capabilities to perform the physical demands of their jobs.},
  author = {{Singulariki}},
  year   = {2026},
  note   = {O*NET 30.3; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130. Accessed June 7, 2026},
  url    = {https://singulariki.com/tasks/task-17197}
}