In order for an impaired function to be considered an important one under the recent amendments, the function must:

1. Be necessary to perform the activities that are essential tasks of the person’s regular or usual employment, taking into account reasonable efforts to accommodate the person’s impairment and the person’s reasonable efforts to use the accommodation to allow the person to continue employment.

 2. Be necessary to perform the activities that are essential tasks of the person’s training for a career in a field in which the person was being  trained before the incident, taking into account reasonable efforts to accommodate the person’s impairment and the person’s reasonable efforts to use the accommodation to allow the person to continue his or her career training.

 3. Be necessary for the person to provide for his or her own care or well-being.

 4. Be important to the usual activities of daily living, considering the person’s age.

Finally, for an impairment to be considered permanent under the legislation, the definition requires that the impairment must:

1. Have been continuous since the incident and must, based on medical evidence and subject to the person reasonably participating in the recommended treatment of the impairment, be expected not to substantially improve.

2. Continue to meet the criteria in paragraph 1 [see the requirement of serious above]

3. Be of a nature that is expected to continue without substantial improvement when sustained by persons in similar circumstances.