Table 1.

Portuguese medico-legal damage parameters.

Damage parameters	Meaning and evaluation criteria
Temporary professional repercussion	Economic temporary damage: period (days) in which the victim is unable to perform his/her usual professional activity.
Total temporary functional deficit	Noneconomic temporary damage: period (days) in which the victim is prevented from autonomously performing acts of daily, family, and social life (without any reference to professional activity). Mostly corresponds with hospitalisation time.
Partial temporary functional deficit	Noneconomic temporary damage: period (days) in which the victim may resume activities of daily, family, and social life with some degree of autonomy, although still with limitations.
Quantum doloris	Noneconomic temporary damage: physical and psychic suffering experienced by the victim during the period of temporary damage on a 7-points scale of increasing severity.
Permanent professional repercussion	Economic permanent damage: victim’s ability to perform professional activity. Levels: 0—Without work affected; 1—Additional effort for usual work or need for workplace adaptation or use of technical aids; 2—Total incapacity for work in the scope of his/her technical-professional qualifications, with need of professional reconversion; 3—Total incapacity for any kind of work.
Permanent functional deficit	Noneconomic permanent damage: definitive effects on the victim’s physical and/or psychic integrity, with repercussion on daily life activities, including family and social life, leisure, and sporting activity, although it is independent of professional activities. Assessed by the National Permanent Disability Table (Annex 2 of the Decree-Law no. 352/2007, 23rd October); 100-points scale of increasing severity.
Future damage	Damage that is not yet observable in the PIA, but whose development is sure, corresponding to an aggravation of the sequelae, in the future, and consequent aggravation of certain damage parameters, namely, Permanent Functional Deficit.
Permanent aesthetic damage	Noneconomic permanent damage: repercussion of the sequelae upon the victim’s self-image and image from others on a 7-points scale of increasing severity.
Permanent repercussion on sexual activity	Noneconomic permanent damage: total or partial limitation on the level of sexual performance/gratification arising from the physical and/or psychic sequelae on a 7-points scale of increasing severity.
Permanent repercussion on sporting and leisure activities	Noneconomic permanent damage: impossibility of the victim engaging in certain leisure, physical or social activities which he/she did regularly, and which represented a clear source of personal fulfilment and gratification on a 7-points scale of increasing severity.
Permanent dependences	Economic permanent damage: it corresponds to the victim’s needs, with repercussion on his/her independence and autonomy; it should be assessed considering the victim’s best chances of rehabilitation and reintegration.

PIA, personal injury assessment.