Pain, Opioids, and Psychiatric Impairment in New York Civil Litigation

Stephan M. Carlson, MD, MBA, FAPA · Civil Psychiatric IME

A plaintiff with an injury, chronic pain, opioid treatment, and depression presents several overlapping explanations for the same functional loss. The forensic task is not to pick one prematurely. It is to determine how much each contributor explains and how much, if any, is attributable to the event in suit. The real question is attribution In personal injury and disability matters, the plaintiff may genuinely suffer from pain, medication effects, mood symptoms, sleep disruption, and cognitive inefficiency. Each can affect concentration, pace, attendance, motivation, frustration tolerance, and work capacity. The psychiatric question is whether the claimed psychiatric impairment was caused o

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