The Board has ordered additional development to obtain medical records and a medical opinion regarding the relationship between the veteran's service-connected psychiatric disorders, including medications prescribed for such, and his cause of death.
The deciding factor: Additional evidence is needed to determine if there is a 50 percent or greater probability that the veteran's service-connected disorders may have caused or contributed to his cardiac disease, leading to his death.
- Claimed conditions
- psychiatric disorders, cardiac disease
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- May 1, 2006
- Citation
- 0612592
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 Veteran's service-connected disabilities do not meet the criteria for special monthly compensation based on need for regular aid and attendance or housebound status, nor does she qualify for a total disability rating based on individual unemployability.
- Denied
The Board denied the Veteran's stepdaughter M.M.'s claim for recognition as his helpless child due to her permanent incapacity for self-support prior to attaining the age of 18, finding that she had been able to engage in substantial work efforts and hold a job despite her visual deficits and psychiatric disorders.
- Partly granted
The veteran's service-connected PTSD was found to have caused or aggravated his fatal heart disease, and an earlier effective date for the grant of service connection for PTSD is not warranted.
- Granted
The veteran's claim for service connection was reopened, and he was granted a 10% rating for residuals of removal of plantar callous on the left foot effective from November 29, 2000. The issue of whether new and material evidence has been received to reopen his claims of entitlement to service connection for cardiac disease is addressed in the REMAND portion of this decision.
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