[Diagnostic specific values of disability duration--a contribution to the epidemiologic analysis of empirical...

In view of the great importance of the disablement period for the sickness figure, a method for interpreting empirical distributions of disablement periods is presented which yields practical information for optimizing diagnosis-specific disablement case periods. By approximating the disablement period distribution via a log-normal distribution, the location parameters mode, median and other quantiles can uniquely determined. The cumulatively determined frequencies of the disablement days with reference to chosen location parameters illustrate the possibilities of maintaining the capacity to work and the necessity of intensifying the medical care if diagnosisuntypical disablement periods are exceeded. To establish these requires further research of concrete long-dated disablement cases.