Rehabilitation ergonomics is an area of scientific study and professional practice that has its roots in health care. Rehabilitation ergonomics is the study of the relationship between the functional limitations and abilities of a person with a disability and the demands of a valued job within the context of a work environment for the purpose of matching that person to that job. Rehabilitation ergonomists are health care professionals who utilize knowledge of functional limitations, work demands, and individual characteristics to optimize the safe work capacity of injured workers and to reduce the incidence and severity of the injury or illness of healthy workers. For many years, occupational therapists and physical therapists in the United States have provided ergonomic services to individuals who have workrelevant functional limitations as a result of work injuries and of disease processes such as polio, coronary artery disease, stroke, and arthritis as well as age-related changes in functional capacity. The focus of the rehabilitation ergonomist is on the person ('the client') within the context of the job and the work environment. This clientcentered approach is consistent with that of noted ergonomist Paul Branton's 'person-centered ergonomics.' Branton (1987) defined ergonomics as 'the systematic study of the reality of limitations to interaction between humans and their work environment and with each other at work.' He distinguishes this theoretic or research approach to ergonomics from the applied approach in that the latter includes 'the application of that reality to design and use of all kinds of artefact.' As Nachreiner (1993) pointed out, Branton argued that work and working conditions should be designed for real persons having goals and objectives who are behaving purposively. For Branton, it was not sufficient to regard man as a biological being with anthropometric measures, muscular strength or certain kinds of information processing capacities, but as a person with unique characteristics who is acting purposively. He argued that 'purposivity, as internal manipulation of the (near) future, explains observed phenomena better than the usual models which regress to causative factors of the past.' Branton's person-centered approach to ergonomics takes as its central point the need to accommodate the human attributes which the person brings to the system. In contrast with traditional ergonomics' emphasis on design for the modal worker, the rehabilitation ergonomist designs a particular job and a particular work environment for a particular individual. As with person-centered ergonomics, the goal of rehabilitation ergonomics is to create supportive, dynamic environments which enable individuals to work at their most safe and effective levels (Oborne et aI., 1993). Branton's approach has created controversy. It