When doctors and therapists are assessing you, particularly ones hired by ICBC, often they are looking to see if you may be exaggerating your injury claim. You should remember that doctors and therapists are trained experts and it is difficult to trick them.
You should not go into the doctor or therapist assessment trying to convince the expert that you are injured. Rather, you should be as forthright as possible with the doctor or therapist and you won’t run into problems where they can say you are exaggerating your claim.
The most popular way of checking whether or not you are exaggerating a claim is for the doctor or therapist to assess you for “Waddell Non-organic Signs”. There are basically seven different tests run by the doctor or therapist and if you are positive on more than one then the doctor or therapist can turn around and say you are exaggerating.
The tests are:
- Superficial tenderness - This is where the doctor or therapist touches you slightly and you say it hurts. Wisdom tells the doctor or therapist that you are overstating your injuries.
- Deep tenderness - This is where the doctor or therapist is poking you and you say everything hurts. Wisdom tells the doctor or therapist that you should not be tender everywhere.
- Axial loading - This is where the doctor or therapist presses down on your head and you say you have low back complaints. Anatomically, this action should not cause any low back complaints whatsoever.
- Simulated rotation - This is where the doctor or therapist asks you to rotate the trunk of your body and you say you have back complaints. Anatomically, this action should not cause any low back complaints whatsoever.
- Straight leg raises - This is where the doctor or therapist asks you to bend over and touch your toes and then tests the exact same movement by placing you on your back on the bench and asks you to lift your legs upwards. The amount of movement on both tests should be identical or pretty close to identical.
- Motor weakness - this is where the doctor or therapist analyzes your complaints of weakness and determines whether they are anatomically correct.
- Sensory distributions - This is where the doctor or therapist asks you about numbness and tingling and then sees if your complaints make sense when it comes to how the nerves are aligned.
Often, a doctor or therapist will be assessing you as you come to and from the office to see if your presentation before you get into the examining room is the same as when you are in the examining room.
If you are going for a functional capacity evaluation, the occupational therapist also runs additional tests on you such as:
- Heart rate monitoring - they monitor your heart rate to see if you are trying during the testing.
- Grip strength testing - they see if you are trying your fullest when your grip strength is tested.
- They run the same tests later in the day to see if you are consistent over the day.
- They run strength test to see if you are meeting the average expected scores.
- They observe your posture and other biomechanical activities during testing to see if you look like you are trying.
The experts, most notably ICBC’s experts, are trying to trick you into showing them you are exaggerating your complaints and injuries. Do not think you can trick the experts.
