Invited Commentary on the ICF and Physical Therapist Practice

Escorpizo and colleagues¹ present a thoughtful argument for the well-defined utilization of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF)² in physical therapist practice documentation. To accomplish this goal, they advocate for the systematic use of assessment tools based on the ICF, specifically, the ICF Core Sets.^2,3 They propose that an ICF Core Set, a short and manageable list of categories applicable to a health condition or event, can be used in clinical practice to describe and monitor the most salient aspects of the disability experience related to a patient's health condition or event. They advocate that each ICF Core Set, the product of a systematic development process that involved extensive input from experts, patients, and review of the literature, be used as the documentation template in physical therapy clinical encounters. In a companion article, Rauch et al⁴ illustrate how the ICF Core Sets might be used as a documentation template in a case report of a patient with spinal cord injury.

I strongly endorse the use of the ICF framework as a common language to facilitate communication among and within health care professions.^5,6 Furthermore, I applaud the authors' stated goal that the physical therapy profession adopt systematic and concrete assessments based on the ICF framework for use in clinical encounters as …