Q&A: Rating Partial Vs Total Knee Replacement

Abstract

QUESTION: In the AMA Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment (AMA Guides), Sixth Edition, is there a difference in rating a partial vs total knee replacement? Table 16-3, Knee Regional Grid—Lower Extremity Impairments, only lists “total knee replacement.”ANSWER: The original (2008) printing of the AMA Guides, Sixth Edition, only listed total knee replacement (TKR) in Table 16-3 (6th ed, 511), which made it unclear how unicompartmental knee replacements, whether unicondylar or patellofemoral, should be rated.However, in the 2014 printing of the sixth edition, and in the digital edition of the AMA Guides Sixth Edition 2022, partial knee replacement is in the same row as TKR in Table 16-3.