title: The no-fault flavor of disability syndromes.
abstract: There are many controversial disability syndromes, representing medicolegal and social dilemmas for a variety of medical disciplines. Health care professionals are at a loss to cure these patients, and judges and disability review boards struggle to be fair while at the same time trying to understand the basis and appropriateness of the ever-growing claims of disability. We review these disability syndromes, examining the basis for their existence, their mechanism, and how these patients can better be understood in a constructive and helpful manner. In doing so, we emphasize the sick role, illness behavior, secondary and tertiary gain, and somatization.
authors.affiliation: rferrari@home.com
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Ferrari
authors.forename: O
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Kwan
mesh_terms: D002908:Chronic Disease; D006233:Persons with Disabilities; D020793:Gatekeeping; D006801:Humans; D010146:Pain / Q000503:physiopathology*