The veteran's claim for an earlier effective date for nonservice-connected disability pension with additional special monthly benefits due to the need for aid and attendance of another person is being remanded due to incomplete medical records.
The deciding factor: Incomplete medical records from VA facilities prior to April 18, 2002 prevented a determination on the claim.
- Claimed conditions
- Alzheimer's type dementia
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- February 18, 2004
- Citation
- 0404554
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 1,710 · Granted: 15% (granted or partly granted, in the vetted decisions on this site)
Judge attribution: 2025 complete; earlier years partial.
This is a plain-language summary generated by AI from a public Board of Veterans’ Appeals decision. It can contain errors — always verify against the original. Look up the original decision on VA.gov (opens in a new tab) using citation 0404554.
What this means for you
A remand is not a loss. The Board sent the case back for more development — often a new exam or missing records — before making a final decision. Many remands later end in a grant, and the decision spells out exactly what the Board wanted to see.
What you can do next
Related decisions
Other Board decisions on a similar condition or argued the same way.
- Denied
The Board denied service connection for skin cancer, prostate cancer, and Alzheimer's type dementia due to a lack of evidence supporting herbicide or ionizing radiation exposure during service.
- Dismissed
The Board has dismissed the appeals for entitlement to service connection for Alzheimer's disease and an increased evaluation in excess of 20 percent for type II diabetes mellitus. The appeal seeking review of the issue of entitlement to an increased initial evaluation in excess of 10 percent for hypothyroidism is also dismissed as there was no prior adjudication of this claim.
- Granted
The Board has granted service connection for Alzheimer's type dementia but denied service connection for an acquired psychiatric disorder. The Veteran's Alzheimer's dementia is found to be related to his active duty service, while no current evidence of a separate acquired psychiatric disorder was found during the period on appeal.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has decided to remand the Veteran's claims for Alzheimer's type dementia and an acquired psychiatric disorder due to insufficient medical opinions regarding their etiology. The case will be returned for further development.
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