About
Robert T. O'Leary, DO, is a physiatrist, double board-certified in physical medicine and rehabilitation and in pain medicine by the American Osteopathic Board of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. He has practiced for more than thirty-two years and is a clinical associate professor at the Orlando College of Osteopathic Medicine. His work concerns functional reserve: what the body can still be asked to do. He built this site so anyone can measure it at home the way his work describes: the same tests, against lines that do not move, every few months, with any help written down. His books and papers are at theaskingpress.com.
What is functional reserve?
Every task costs energy, and every person has a ceiling: the most he can produce. Functional reserve is the distance between them. It shrinks two ways: the ceiling falls, or the task costs more. It grows two ways: training raises the ceiling, and skill lowers the cost. Help lowers the cost too, but only while the help is there.
You cannot feel reserve shrink. The day still gets done; it just takes more of you. So this site measures it the way a route measured a mail carrier for forty years: the same tasks, against lines that do not move, every few months, with any help written down. A margin that is getting smaller is worth knowing about years before anything fails.
What this site is not
It is not a medical service. It compares self-measured results with published population data and fixed published lines. For personal advice, see your clinician.