From the reviews:
"There is no doubt that skyrocketing disability claims are having a profound monetary and social impact on Western societies. Leading this explosion are the biopsychosocial disabilities that have proved elusive to standard modeling. Schultz and Gatchel have created a repository of new knowledge about these disabilities, with some practical suggestions on how to integrate this knowledge effectively into clinical, case-management, rehabilitation, corporate, compensation, and return-to-work practices. Albert Einstein is reported to have said that 'the significant problems we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.' This book does an admirable job of presenting a new paradigm to better address this challenging problem."
Brian E.Grottkau, M.D., Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA
Excerpted from The New England Journal of Medicine, August 31, 2006
"The Handbook of Complex Occupational Disability Claims... is a timely text that synthesizes a copious amount of research and clinical data pertaining to a number of poorly defined medical conditions into an authoritative tool for use in practice across multiple disciplines. It should be considered mandatory reading for clinicians, rehabilitation specialists, case managers, and other professionals involved in occupational disability cases and claims management."
Bruce A. Barron, Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, Rochester, NY
Excerpted from the Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation
"An excellent text that is truly worthwhile in its scope, coverage and depth of information. The impetus for this handbook stems from the contention that the United States and other developed Western nations are in the midst of an epidemic. This epidemic is composed of escalating occupational disability and skyrocketing economiccosts. … It admirably summarizes the literature on risk factors and reviews the programs developed … that intervene with the at-risk group. In terms of scope and level of comprehensiveness, no comparable text exists." (John A. Dooley, PsycCRITIQUES, Vol. 51 (8), 2006)
Reviewer: John T. Pierce, MBBS (MD) PhD(Navy Environmental Health Center)
Description: This handbook addresses recent clinical and occupational practices in healthcare, rehabilitation, disability insurance, and workers' compensation industries. It goes on to synthesize and also review current research on what are termed biopsychosocial conditions.
Purpose: The editors make it clear that they wish to facilitate transfer of knowledge and the development of new clinical and occupational practices in healthcare.
Audience: Three different perspectives expressed in the handbook's 30 chapters correspond well with its likely readership, those adhering to biomedical, psychological, and systematic models.
Features: The handbook is organized in five major parts: conceptual and methodological issues, prediction of pain- and psychologically-related conditions, application of disability predictions, early interventions, and the future.
Assessment: The editors frankly admit the handbook contains disparate explanations for complex disability phenomena. They successfully minimize politicization and polarization to support an evidence-based approach. The handbook is neither an easy nor a quick read, but it will yield sizeable dividends for those who pursue its findings.