The EDSS (Expanded Disability Status Scale) http://www.albany.net/~tjc/edss.html measures the level and progression of disabililty for people with MS.
The range is from 0.0 - a standard neurological exam; to 10.0 - death
What the fuck is that? Um, aren’t we all somewhat disabled after death? The effect that scale has on someone newly diagnosed with a chronic and unpredictable disease is heartbreaking. They only see the fast track that implies.
Why the fuck wouldn’t they begin the scale at the first sign of abnormal and end it at near death?
Whiskey Hotel Alpha Tango. . . Delta Oscar November Tango. . .Yankee Oscar Uniform. . . Golf Echo Tango?
I thought I could bitch about anything that pisses me off . . . that disability scale pisses me off. . . I thought in the collective effort to fight ignorance I was highlighting an area that had been overlooked.
I don’t understand your complaint either. It seems to me that a useful scale would have to include some readily definable endpoints, and this one does.
0 = no impairment
10 = can’t get any worse
What’s the problem?
I do sort of think it rather odd that they need a specific rating (10.0) for a dead person. I imagine that having the end point being the worst it can be with you still alive is just as good as having it mean your stone dead.
There IS no “worst it can be with you still alive” – no matter how bad it is, if you’re still alive, it can get worse. One might say that the patient population’s scores approach death asymptotically. The entire point of such a scale is that there are end point scores that will not be assigned to anyone who belongs on the scale.
Definitely not a good scale, but those shortcomings are the ones described on the site. I think the end points are well chosen, and only the mind that seeks despair will find it there.
I suppose my argument has been around beginning the scale at a point (ability) where many/most people function and ending it (disability) where we all certainly end, is not tremendously valuable.
But point taken, the scale allows for the asymptote and must describe starting and stopping points. Thank you. (Much more helpful than Whiskey Tango Foxtrot 
)
Sorry, but it was really obvious to me why it would have chosen absolutes and endpoints, and further I still don’t have the slightest idea why it would bother you.
Absolutes as endpoints, that is.