Mental Health Symptoms and Chronic Pain in IMEs: How Physician Experts Should Analyze Mood, Anxiety, and Delayed Recovery
Pain and mental health symptoms commonly travel together. In independent medical examinations, disability evaluations, workers’ compensation cases, personal injury claims, and chronic pain reviews, claimants frequently report that depression, anxiety, irritability, poor sleep, and loss of motivation are “secondary to pain.” They may explain that when their pain is lower, their mood is better, and if the pain resolved, they believe their mental health would return to baseline.