The Board has determined that new and material evidence has been submitted to reopen the claim of service connection for a low back disability. The Board also found that service connection is warranted based on the Veteran's testimony and medical opinion.
The deciding factor: The Board found that the Veteran's testimony regarding his ongoing pain since the in-service lumbar puncture, combined with the medical opinion linking the current back condition to the original injury sustained while in military service, established a reasonable possibility of substantiating the claim for service connection.
- Claimed conditions
- Degenerative Disc Disease (DDD) of the lumbosacral spine
- How they argued it
- Reopened with new and material evidence
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- January 19, 2016
- Citation
- 1602002
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 1602002.
What this means for you
A grant means the Board agreed the veteran was entitled to the benefit. Decisions like this show the kind of evidence and arguments that tend to succeed for claims like it.
What you can do next
Related decisions
Other Board decisions on a similar condition or argued the same way.
- Granted
The Veteran's DDD of the lumbosacral spine is now rated at 40 percent effective December 22, 2010.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board vacated part of its decision denying a rating in excess of 10 percent for service-connected DDD of the lumbosacral spine, and remanded it due to a lack of contemporaneous examination. The claim is now pending again.
- Partly granted
The Veteran was awarded a 10% rating for DDD of the lumbosacral spine effective August 16, 2018. However, he did not receive proper notice of a scheduled VA examination in June 2000 and his service connection claim is still pending.
- Granted
The Veteran's DDD of the lumbosacral spine is granted a higher evaluation to 40 percent. The evaluations for bilateral lower extremity radiculopathy remain at 10 percent.
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