Pain, impairment, and disability in the AMA Guides

"Back injuries have a bad reputation. The workman gazes upon them with apprehension, the insurance company with doubt, the medical examiner with suspicion, the lawyer with uncertainty.... The medical examiner is faced with the difficulty of estimating the pure value of the subjective symptoms in the comparative absence of physical signs. His suspicion is born of the of frequent occurrence disparity between these two."

This prophetic statement made almost 100 years ago highlights an ongoing problem--how race who are incapacitated by painful conditions like as chronic low back pain can be evaluated consistently and equitably for objects of disability compensation. We faceed ...