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| 369.3 | Unqualified visual loss, both eyes | | | Excludes: blindness NOS: | | | | legal [U.S. definition] (369.4) | | | | WHO definition (369.00) | | 369.4 | Legal blindness, as defined in United States | | | Blindness NOS according to U.S. definition | |
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Excludes legal blindness with specification of impairment level 9369.01369.08, 369.11369.14, 369.21369.22) |
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| | (ICD-9CM, 91) |
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Note in the above example that ''blindness of the individual" might be psychogenic, due to brain damage, or other organic cause outside the eye itself. The problem of localized versus whole organism conditions creates serious coding challenges. For example, depending on one's theory of cancer, it would be an immune disorder affecting the whole person, or a localized phenomenon to be surgically removed, and with many gray areas in between for the different types of cancer. |
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In the example above, the legal definition can take precedence over the cultural and social. Thus cannabis dependence has its own category, while the culturally profoundly different absinthe and glue addictions are lumped together: |
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| 304.3 | Cannabis dependence | | | Hashish | Marihuana | | | | Hemp | | | | 304.6 | Other specified drug dependence | | | Absinthe addiction | Glue sniffing | |
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Excludes: tobacco dependence (305.1) |
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| | (ICD-9CM, 6970) |
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Few would argue that glue sniffing and absinthe addiction are similar phenomena. The former leads to more serious physical conditions than 'cannabis dependence' (a category many would challenge), and yet it does not rate its own category. Absinthe addiction is, one suspects, a hangover from earlier days. Because the origins of the ICD were French, and absinthe abuse an important problem in Paris in the nineteenth century, it persists. These accidents of history, practice and crime contain many clues to re-narrativizing the ICD. E970 to E979 in ICD-9 is an interesting set that covers injuries caused by legal interventions: |
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| Legal intervention | | Includes: | injuries inflicted by the police or other law-enforcing agents, including military on duty, in the course of arresting or |
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