The Veteran is granted a special monthly pension based on the need for aid and attendance due to her visual impairment and balance issues related to blindness.
The deciding factor: The Veteran's visual impairment necessitates regular assistance with daily activities, including meal preparation and hygiene, which meets the criteria for needing aid and attendance.
- Claimed conditions
- Visual impairment, Balance issues related to blindness
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- 100%
- Decision date
- February 7, 2019
- Citation
- 19109132
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 2,011 · Granted: 24% (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 19109132.
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.
- Denied
The Board has denied service connection for various conditions including an acquired psychiatric disorder, visual impairment, bilateral hearing loss, erectile dysfunction, a right elbow disorder, a right foot disorder, and a right lower extremity nerve disability due to the lack of evidence showing these conditions were incurred in or aggravated by service.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board remands the claims for further development, including determining whether the Veteran's ship ventured within 12 nautical miles of the Vietnam coast and obtaining additional medical opinions to address the nature and etiology of the claimed conditions.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board is remanding the case due to a failure to schedule a VA examination, which was triggered by the Veteran's credible report of an in-service TBI during basic training. The examiner will assess whether it is at least as likely as not that the Veteran's TBI had its onset during service or is otherwise etiologically related to his reported in-service TBI.
- Denied
The Veteran's claim for special monthly compensation (SMC) based on his spouse requiring aid and attendance is denied because the evidence does not show that her visual impairment meets the criteria for needing regular aid and attendance.
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