When a Buffalo personal injury lawsuit involves a neck or back injury – or, in some cases, injury to any joint – the injured person’s medical providers will frequently conduct range of motion testing to see if there is any limitation in the movement of the affected area. This testing often takes on special significance in personal injury lawsuits.
This is because to establish a serious injury in a motor vehicle accident lawsuit, the injured person must be able to present some objective evidence of injury. The courts have ruled that range of motion testing, if properly done, constitutes objective evidence. As a result, when significant limitations are shown in range of motion testing compared to “normal” results, it can be very helpful to the injured person’s case.
This situation is somewhat anomalous in that, while the courts recognize this evidence as demonstrating objective limitations, the medical community has increasingly moved away from range of motion testing as an accurate measure of the degree of personal injury. This is based on several factors, including differences in what constitutes “normal” from individual to individual, age and gender differences, and the often subjective nature of results that may be influenced by the injured person’s feeling pain and frequently show wide variation from doctor to doctor.
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