The Veteran's claim for service connection for an acquired psychiatric disorder, including as secondary to traumatic brain injury, thoracolumbar spine degenerative joint disease, migraine headaches, and left eyebrow scar is granted. The claims for right arm condition, left arm condition, diabetes mellitus, bilateral foot condition, sleep condition, neck condition, and prostate cancer are denied.
The deciding factor: The Veteran's psychiatric disorder is found to be secondary to his service-connected disabilities, including traumatic brain injury, thoracolumbar spine degenerative joint disease, migraine headaches, and left eyebrow scar.
- Claimed conditions
- depressive disorder, left eyebrow scar, traumatic brain injury, thoracolumbar spine degenerative joint disease, migraine headaches
- How they argued it
- Secondary to another service-connected condition
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- January 23, 2020
- Citation
- 20004826
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 2,421 · Granted: 29% (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 20004826.
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.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has remanded the claims for bilateral hearing loss, migraine headaches, and PTSD due to additional development of records and examination.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has determined that additional development is needed for the claims on appeal, including obtaining any outstanding treatment records and scheduling VA examinations to assess the current severity of service-connected disabilities. The Veteran's representative also requested reevaluation of his service-connected disabilities.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has remanded the cases for additional development due to incomplete medical records and insufficient opinions regarding the relationship between service, including a stick injury in England, and current left eye disability (including amblyopia and cataracts) as well as migraine headaches.
- Granted
The Veteran's vascular headaches are granted effective August 22, 2011. A TDIU is granted effective February 11, 2015. SMC based on housebound criteria is denied prior to July 14, 2020.
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