* Medical tests employed in the validation of the Pain Validity Test include: Flexion-Extension X-rays • Spiral CTs # PET scans of brain, bone and soft tissue •  Spect scans of brain and bone •  Luria Nebraska • Ravens progressive matrices and other neuropsychological testing for temporal lobe and coritcal damage •  Nasopharyngeal leads and alpha chloralose enhanced EEG and deep electrode recording for temporal lobe epilepsy • Provocative discograms • Facet blocks •  Root blocks • Mixed peripheral nerve blocks •  Bone scans • Indium 111 scans • Gallium scans •  MRI (only a screening tool for disc disease due to 30% false positive rate (Jensen et al) and 78% false negative rate (Sandhu et al))   Sympathetic ganglion blocks for CRPS (RSD) • Isohexol myelograms, followed by MRI or 3D-CTs • Rotated CTs and MRs for rotational subluxation •  Flexion MRIs • Cine MRIs with jaw open and shut for TMJ problems • Doppler and quantitative blood flow studies arms up and down for vascular components of thoracic outlet syndrome •  EMG/nerve conduction velocity studies • SSEP (somatosensory evoked potential) for quantifying sensory nerve damage • Current perception threshold testing (Neurometer) to determine if the A beta, A delta or C sensory nerve fibers were damaged •  Zinreich views on CT of sinuses •  Selective facet rhizotomies at the pars interarticularis, the capsule of the facet, or at the transverse process •  Selective radiofrequency and cryocoagulation of nerve roots, and recurrent nerve of Luska •  Body jacket with thigh spika (TSLO) •  2 poster brace •  Miami J collar Raney flexion jacket •  Triiated CSF, with nasal cotton plechettes to determine CSF leaks Phentolamine IV to test for CRPS (RSD) • BAER (brain stem auditory evoked response) and electronystagmography.

The Pain Validity Test was originally validated on 796 actual chronic pain patients, with results published in seven peer-reviewed articles in medical and other journals. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)

As documented in the most recent of these articles, published in April 2008, the Pain Validity Test (PVT) can predict - with 95% certainty - which claimants will have moderate or severe abnormalities on objective medical testing*, i.e. whose complaints of chronic pain are legitimate.

In contrast, the key concept underlying the MMPI Fake Bad Scale and other psychological tests is that they try to measure personality traits and then assume that there is a correlation between personality and medical disease.

The real issue is whether genuine, objective medical pathology exists to account for plaintiffs’ complaints of chronic pain.

Comprehensive searches of the peer-reviewed literature have failed to uncover a single study that consistently correlates the results of the MMPI and other ‘psychological’ tests with the presence or absence of organic pathology as measured by objective medical tests such as CTs, MRIs, EMGs, nerve conduction velocity studies, etc.

Indeed, several peer reviewed articles positively document that the MMPI cannot consistently predict the presence or absence of organic pathology. (8, 9, 10)