The Board has remanded the Veteran's claims for service connection due to insufficient evidence regarding his claimed low back disability and related conditions. The Veteran must provide additional medical evidence or obtain releases, and a new opinion is needed on the etiology of his low back disability and its relationship to other disabilities.
The deciding factor: The Board found that there was not enough evidence to determine if the Veteran's current low back disability is related to his active service due to insufficient STRs and lack of medical records from 1992 onwards. The claims for bilateral lower extremity neuropathy, left ankle disability, and depressive disorder are also remanded as they are inextricably intertwined with the low back disability claim.
- Claimed conditions
- compression fracture of L1 vertebrae, lumbar spinal stenosis (low back disability), left lower extremity neuropathy, right lower extremity neuropathy, osteoarthritis of the left ankle (left ankle disability), depressive disorder, NOS (claimed as sleep disturbances)
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- October 10, 2019
- Citation
- 19178078
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.
- Granted
The Board granted a disability rating of 50 percent for the Veteran's acquired psychiatric disorder, characterized as depressive disorder, effective May 1, 2017.
- Denied
The Board denied service connection for various conditions and a TDIU, as the evidence did not support a finding that any of these disabilities were related to the Veteran's military service.
- Dismissed
The appeals for service connection for various conditions were dismissed due to the Veteran's death.
- Partly granted
The Veteran is granted service connection for migraine headaches secondary to tinnitus, effective April 1, 2021. The claim for an earlier effective date for depressive disorder was denied.
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