Provided to all who attended the June 1984 American Medical Association (AMA) Conference on Impairment and Disability, this second edition of the Guides, the result of several years of work by AMA staff in conjunction with numerous experts, will be, like the first edition, a major part of the available literature on evaluating impairments.
Its 12 chapters range from a 60-page section on "The Extremities, Spine, and Pelvis" to a six-page section on "The Hematopoietic System" and cover all systems. A minor change in chapter headings includes the transformation of "Mental Illness" into "Mental and Behavioral Disorders"; the chapter has been rewritten extensively and represents a major change in conceptual approach. There is a succinct appendix describing the essentials of reporting of impairments and an important new addition on the evaluation of "Sleep and Arousal Disorders."
As stated in the preface, "the principal use of a medical rating of permanent