The Board has determined that the Veteran's currently diagnosed Obstructive Sleep Apnea is aggravated by his service-connected Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, and therefore grants service connection for OSA on a secondary basis.
The deciding factor: The VA examiner found that the Veteran’s sleep apnea was aggravated by his PTSD, as there is no physiologic or biomechanical causal relationship between PTSD and sleep apnea either in terms of causation or aggravation.
- Claimed conditions
- Obstructive Sleep Apnea
- How they argued it
- Aggravation of a pre-existing condition
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- November 12, 2019
- Citation
- 19184973
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 denied service connection for various disabilities and denied higher ratings for several service-connected conditions.
- Granted
The Board granted service connection for obstructive sleep apnea as secondary to the Veteran's service-connected psychiatric disorders, lumbar and cervical spine disabilities, bilateral radiculopathy of the upper extremities, and bilateral radiculopathy and neuropathy of the lower extremities.
- Denied
The Board denied a rating in excess of 50 percent for PTSD, finding that the Veteran's symptoms more closely approximated those associated with a 50 percent rating.
- Partly granted
The appeal for entitlement to service connection for obstructive sleep apnea was granted, while other appeals were dismissed as untimely and remanded for further action on essential tremors.
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