Functional overlay in work-related injury

Preview

A person's emotional response to a medical condition, ie, the “functional overlay,” can have striking importance in terms of both disease course and legal ramifications. Drs Florence and Miller, who have had extensive experience with chronic pain patients and workers' compensation cases, spell out a plan for recognizing patients in whom the emotional component of physical problems is of conscious origin and those in whom it is of subconscious origin, an important skill for primary care physicians who treat work-related medical problems.