The Board denied the Veteran's claim for a separate rating for a depressive disorder with anxious distress, secondary to Parkinson's disease, as it found that assigning such a rating would constitute impermissible pyramiding of benefits.
The deciding factor: The October 2023 VA examination and the October 2023 Mental Disorder's examination determined that all symptoms can be subsumed under diagnoses of Major Neurocognitive Disorder and Unspecified Depressive Disorder, with no sufficient differentiation possible without resorting to mere speculation.
- Claimed conditions
- Depressive Disorder with Anxious Distress
- How they argued it
- Secondary to another service-connected condition
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- October 10, 2024
- Citation
- A24064966
What this means for you
A denial is a starting point, not the end of the road. You can see why this claim fell short — and, if you are still inside the one-year window, the appeal lanes that may remain open to you.
What you can do next
Related decisions
Other Board decisions on a similar condition or argued the same way.
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- Granted
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