Dr. Sonia Paquette, OTD, OTR/L, CPE, D-ABVE

 

Occupational therapist since 1987 and ergonomist since 1993, Sonia Paquette has worked in hundreds of worksites, both in prevention and in rehabilitation. She  has helped people with a large variety of diagnosis get back to work or remain at work: musculoskeletal problems, traumatic head injuries, spinal cord injuries. mental health disorders (transcient or persistent), muscular dystrophy etc. 

 

Dr. Paquette evaluated hundreds of individuals for their capacities to work or to perform particular tasks, and hundreds of jobs for their physical, cognitive and organizational demands, and has usually been successful in increasing the match between the job demands and the worker's capacity. When the match was impossible, at least, objective data was available in the determination of an alternate employment possibility (see Case examples).

 

Dr. Paquette has been an adjunct faculty at the University of Montreal from 2003 to 2007, a lecturer at McGill University, teaching about ergonomics and work rehabilitation. She worked in the development of the Faculty of Medicine micro-program "Insurance and MedicoLegal Expertise" for physicians at the Uniersity of Montreal. She completed her clinical doctorate in occupational therapy focused on integrating evidence-based practice into her daily interventions.

 

Dr. Paquette was involved in a major research project with the Public Health Department of Montreal, where she was instrumental in developing tools and writing guidelines for employers who wish to establish a program aiming at maintaining or returning injured workers to work. The result of this work is available at http://www.santepub-mtl.qc.ca/omrt/tools.html. Training in French and English for this method is available through Dr. Paquette. 

 

As an OT and ergonomist, her success led to a practice helping attorneys determine if their clients can go back to particular jobs or particular job titles, or to identify the work-related correlation, in any, of their client's injuries. This was done from 1999-2005 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Having worked with so many injured or ill individuals, she naturally transferred and expanded her knowledge to become a vocational consultant and expert witness.

 

Dr. Paquette moved in Pennsylvania in 2005. In 2007, she started consulting again with employers, insurers and attorneys, serving the greater Philadelphia area, Delaware and northeastern Maryland regions.

  

Please, send an email to request Dr. Paquette's updated resume.