Sarah Finnegan
Deborah Lechner
Deborah Lechner wants to prevent injuries and help people move better. That’s why she founded ErgoScience in 1992.
The business was born out of research Lechner conducted while on faculty at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She developed a physical abilities test to determine the full range of a person’s ability to work: lifting, carrying, pushing, pulling, reaching and more.
Employers can use the test, Lechner said, to determine if new hires can do the job, if injured employees are ready to return to work and to assess disability claims. These services formed the backbone of ErgoScience and are still a significant part of the company’s work.
In the nearly 25 years since she founded the company, ErgoScience has added work function testing for insurance carriers and a wide variety of injury prevention and treatment services for employers and individuals. These include worksite ergonomic analysis, rehabilitation and employee screening and training for many national companies.
In their main office on Office Park Drive in Mountain Brook, ErgoScience physical therapists work with patients one-on-one with completely customizable regimens to get them back to healthy movement and productive lives.
“What we do here in the clinic is very hands on and customized,” Lechner said. “Because of that, we offer some really effective treatments here, and that’s one of the things that I’m really proud of.”
A critical part of ErgoScience’s success is the advanced testing they can provide to help patients understand their own bodies, such as movement and posture analysis using body sensors. Seeing the results of these tests makes patients more likely to commit to their treatment plan, and it gives them a chance to see their progress over time.
“The people who come to us for treatment, most of the time they’re pretty uncomfortable. They’ve got lots of pain and dysfunction, and we have the opportunity to work with them and see dramatic results. And within a few treatments, they’re feeling a lot better and they’re able to do things that they couldn’t do because of the pain,” Lechner said.
Staying up to date on the latest research in injury prevention and treatment is a critical part of the job, Lechner said. She never wants the company to stagnate, and they pride themselves in being cutting edge, the first to offer new services that improve quality of life for their patients. Some of ErgoScience’s services such as dry needling, cold laser, body sensor analysis and instrumented soft tissue work are hard to find elsewhere.
As the company continues to grow, Lechner wants to continue expanding services and making treatment holistic by partnering with a company that provides wellness programs. One of her favorite parts of being president of ErgoScience is discovering ways to continually improve.
“Every day is different and it requires us to be creative and develop new and different ways to solve problems,” Lechner said.
