nursing

The 5th Edition is the Rosetta Stone for evaluating permanent impairment. It is invaluable in workers' compensation, where many states, provinces and several countries either mandate its use or treat this work as an authorativie source of impairment evaluation. It may also come to have utility in ADA cases, especially with its emphasis on activities of daily living, and as a predicate to demonstrating the significance or insignificance of an impairment's effect on major life activities after Toyota vs Williams. The vision chapter represents the AMA's first major, published revision to the science and knowledge of eye impairments since the early 1900's.

Although my copy came with 10 pages of errata sheets stuck in the front of it (presumably cured in the 5th version), I still got a lot out of reading through this book. The descriptions of impairment are de regeur reading for coming up with convincing settlement demands for soft tissue injuries. Someone's shoulder hurts? How do you say they have lost 20% of their upper body use as a result? Why not 90% of one finger, 50% of one hand, and 80% of one arm? Multiple impairments like these can be descriptively segmented to more fully elaborate what a patient is feeling, and how they are limited in daily activities. Both the plaintiff bar and the insurance community are well-served by this book. As for the medical accuracy of it, I'll take the AMA's word for it.