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Len Matheson discussing the MTAP:

Hello and welcome to a brief introduction to the Multidimensional Task Ability Profile, MTAP, a new strategy for functional capacity assessment.

MTAP begins with stop-action photography that is used to provide an image to a skilled artist to focus on the foreground and minimize background or extraneous information.

Several hundred drawings have been married to simple task descriptions and provided a six-level rating scale and then analyzed with about 30 thousand patients …

… in terms of the difficulty level of each item using the Rasch model of item response theory. Given the difficulty level of each item, items are able to be combined into a comprehensive task ability profile …

… that allows us to sample across a broad range of difficulty levels beginning at a very low level and ending up at a very high level.

Computer administration using the touch screen or mouse allows the 50-item MTAP 2.0 to be administered in about 8 minutes to 10 minutes.

Sophisticated analysis of the data is immediate and automatic and provides output in terms of the work demands that the person is capable of performing.

There's a rating in terms of full physical demand characteristics of work and the three major factors that compose PDC level: handling, walking and climbing, and lifting and carrying.

Output is also automatically provided in terms of four levels of activities of daily living.

The ability scores by each type of demand are provided in terms of ADL self care, light housekeeping, heavy housekeeping, and heavy home maintenance.

A simple and easily understood report card is provided to the patient that allows the person to focus on their progress and identifies those activities that still need to be worked on.

Research conducted under the auspices of the U.S. Spine and Sport Foundation has been published in peer-reviewed journals looking at the reliability and validity and utility of the MTAP in clinical studies.

Thank you for your interest in MTAP. For further information, contact Dr. Joe Verna at the U.S. Spine and Sport Foundation in San Diego, California. Thank you.