“Permanent Disability”: When and How Should It Be Determined?

Abstract

“Permanent disability” is a legal term which can be defined as the definitive loss of a function or an organ.
When it is caused by violence, it worsens the punishment of the perpetrator.
From four reported clinical cases, we consider the meaning of the term of disability, the difficulty to determine
whether it is permanent or not, and the relationships between the other legal terms: “permanent partial incapacity”
and “total incapacity of personal work”. By way of conclusion, it is important to make physicians aware about
such notions, so that the “permanent disability” is recorded in the medical record or in the medical expertise
report, as soon as possible in the more serious cases.