Standard Terminology for Fetal, Infant, and Perinatal Deaths

Abstract The AMA Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment (AMA Guides), Fifth Edition, was published in November 2000 and contains major changes from its predecessor. In the Fourth Edition, all musculoskeletal evaluation and rating was described in a single chapter. In the Fifth Edition, this information has been divided into three separate chapters: Upper Extremity (13), Lower Extremity (14), and Spine (15). This article discusses changes in the spine chapter. The Models for rating spinal impairment now are called Methods. The AMA Guides, Fifth Edition, has reverted to standard terminology for spinal regions in the Diagnosis-related estimates (DRE) Method, and both it and the Range of Motion (ROM) Method now reference cervical, thoracic, and lumbar. Also, the language requiring the use of the DRE, rather than the ROM Method has been strengthened. The biggest change in the DRE Method is that evaluation should include the treatment results. Unfortunately, the Fourth Edition's philosophy regarding when and how to rate impairment using the DRE Model led to a number of problems, including the same rating of all patients with radiculopathy despite some true differences in outcomes. The term differentiator was abandoned and replaced with clinical findings. Significant changes were made in evaluation of patients with spinal cord injuries, and evaluators should become familiar with these and other changes in the Fifth Edition.

Download Full-text

Congenital Malformations and Perinatal Deaths among the Children of Atomic Bomb Survivors: A Reappraisal

American Journal of Epidemiology ◽

10.1093/aje/kwab099 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Michiko Yamada ◽

Kyoji Furukawa ◽

Yoshimi Tatsukawa ◽

Keiko Marumo ◽

Sachiyo Funamoto ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Pregnancy Outcomes ◽

Congenital Malformations ◽

Radiation Effects ◽

Atomic Bomb ◽

Perinatal Deaths ◽

Neonatal Deaths ◽

Atomic Bomb Survivors ◽

Parental Exposure ◽

Increased Risk ◽

Major Congenital Malformations

Abstract From 1948 to 1954, the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission conducted a study of pregnancy outcomes of children of atomic bomb survivors who had received radiation doses from zero to near-lethal levels. Past reports (1956, 1981, and 1990) on the cohort did not identify significant associations of radiation exposure with untoward pregnancy outcomes such as major congenital malformations, stillbirths, or neonatal deaths, individually or in aggregate. We have re-examined the risk of major congenital malformations and perinatal deaths in the children of the atomic bomb survivors (N=71,603) using fully reconstructed data to minimize the potential for bias, with refined estimates of the gonadal dose from the Dosimetry System 2002 and refined analytical methods for characterizing dose-response relationships. The analyses show that parental exposure is associated with increased risk for major congenital malformations and perinatal deaths, but the estimates are imprecise for direct radiation effects and most are not statistically significant. Nonetheless, the uniformly positive estimates for untoward pregnancy outcomes among children of both maternal and paternal survivors are useful for risk assessment purposes, although extending them to circumstances other than atomic bomb survivors comes with uncertainty as to the generalizability of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki populations.

Download Full-text