The Board has remanded the case for further development to determine if the Veteran's current back disability is at least as likely as not proximately due to or aggravated by her service-connected right ankle sprain.
The deciding factor: The examiner must consider whether the Veteran's reports about her symptoms and injuries align with how the currently diagnosed lumbar spine degenerative changes are known to develop, or if they are generally inconsistent with medical knowledge or implausible.
- Claimed conditions
- Degenerative changes, lumbar spine
- How they argued it
- Secondary to another service-connected condition
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- October 4, 2021
- Citation
- 21061570
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 1,861 · Granted: 27% (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 21061570.
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 Veteran's degenerative changes of the lumbar spine were caused by an injury during a period of active duty for training (ADT) in August 1999, and the Board has granted service connection for this condition.
- Denied
The Board denied the Veteran's claim for service connection for degenerative changes, lumbar spine as not related to her in-service injuries and found that it was not proximately due or aggravated by her service-connected right ankle sprain.
- Denied
The Board denied a TDIU on an extraschedular basis prior to September 14, 2011 due to the preponderance of evidence showing that the Veteran's service-connected disabilities did not prevent him from securing and following substantially gainful employment.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has determined that a new examination is necessary due to the Veteran's complaints of intense pain and functional impairment. The issues on appeal are related to his service-connected lumbar spine disability, including its residuals.
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