Evaluation and Comparison of Disability Status in Cases with Isolated Extremity Injuries Based on Current Regulations

This study compares two commonly used regulations in disability assessment, the Regulation on Disability Assessment for Adults (RDA) and the Regulation on Determination of Loss of Working Capacity (RLW), by examining cases with isolated extremity injuries. Disability reports from 347 cases with isolated extremity injuries were reviewed. These reports were issued by the Department of Forensic Medicine at the Bursa Uludağ University Faculty of Medicine between 2020 and 2023. For each case, disability rates were calculated according to the RLW and the RDA. The median disability rate was 4 (min-max: 0–57) according to the RDA and 6 (min-max: 0–81) according to the RLW. Disability rates calculated using the RLW were significantly higher than those calculated using the RDA (p<0.001). A strong positive correlation was observed between disability rates calculated according to the two regulations (r=0.881, p<0.001). The leg (cruris) region was identified as the most frequently injured area (37.2%). Range-of-motion limitation (60.2%), diagnosis-based impairments (14.7%), and atrophy (14.1%) were the most common impairments. We believe that the current disability regulations should be reviewed, and that a new regulation should be developed which covers all types of impairments, specifies disability rates without requiring subjective judgment or comparison, and minimizes interpretive differences.