Scarano V R, Jankovic J
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA.
J Forensic Sci. 1998 Mar;43(2):334-9.
Since patients with post-traumatic, neurologic, movement disorders often seek legal counsel and become involved in litigation, we used this group of disorders as a model for testing the hypothesis that an interaction with the legal system may influence its outcome. We reviewed 100 consecutive medical records of patients with post-traumatic movement disorders from the Movement Disorders Clinic at the Baylor College of Medicine. Additionally, 40 patients completed a detailed questionnaire and a health survey. Nineteen of the 40 respondents had obtained legal representation in regards to compensation for their medical problems. The group of patients with attorneys differed from those without legal representation in that they were significantly younger and a significantly higher percentage of these patients were disabled as compared to the group without attorneys. While most were dissatisfied with the legal system, 68% were satisfied with services provided by their attorneys. Although the patients with legal aspects of their movement disorders seemed to have more severe and persistent disability, we could not definitely conclude that the legal system had adversely affected the outcome of the post-traumatic movement disorders.
由于患有创伤后神经运动障碍的患者常常寻求法律顾问并卷入诉讼，我们将这组疾病作为一个模型，来检验与法律系统的互动可能会影响其结果这一假设。我们回顾了贝勒医学院运动障碍诊所100例连续的创伤后运动障碍患者的病历。此外，40名患者完成了一份详细的问卷和一项健康调查。40名受访者中有19人就其医疗问题的赔偿事宜获得了法律代理。有律师代理的患者组与没有法律代理的患者组不同，前者明显更年轻，而且与没有律师的组相比，这些患者中残疾的比例要高得多。虽然大多数人对法律系统不满意，但68%的人对其律师提供的服务感到满意。尽管患有运动障碍且涉及法律问题的患者似乎有更严重和持续的残疾，但我们不能肯定地得出结论，即法律系统对创伤后运动障碍的结果产生了不利影响。
