Spreadsheet software to assess locomotor disability to quantify permanent physical impairment

Area of Science:

• Orthopedics
• Rehabilitation Medicine
• Medical Informatics

Background:

• Accurate assessment of physical disability is crucial for plastic surgeons, particularly in institutional settings.
• Existing guidelines for disability assessment, such as the Gazette of India notification, can be time-consuming to implement.
• There is a need for efficient and user-friendly tools to quantify permanent physical impairment.

Purpose of the Study:

• To design a simple, reproducible, and accurate spreadsheet program for assessing physical disability.
• To streamline the calculation process based on the Gazette of India notification.
• To reduce the time required for disability assessment.

Main Methods:

• Development of a spreadsheet program using Microsoft Excel.
• The program is based on guidelines from the Gazette of India Notification for assessing Locomotor Disability.
• Two distinct programs were created: one for the upper limb and one for the lower limb.

Main Results:

• Two functional spreadsheet programs, one for upper limb and one for lower limb disability assessment, were developed.
• Representative examples demonstrated that the spreadsheet program yields accurate results comparable to traditional calculation methods.
• The developed programs are user-friendly and less time-consuming.

Conclusions:

• A user-friendly spreadsheet program can effectively assess physical disability according to the Gazette of India Notification.
• The developed tool offers an accurate and efficient alternative to traditional methods for quantifying permanent physical impairment.
• This innovation supports plastic surgeons in their duty of assessing physical disability.