The Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) scale is a scoring system used by mental health professionals to assess how well an individual is functioning in his or her everyday life. It is generally used to measure the impact a person’s mental health condition is having on his or her ability to...

Veterans who are recovering from a surgery or who are temporarily immobilized due to a service-connected disability may be eligible for a temporary 100 percent disability rating and compensation. The duration of this temporary 100 percent rating varies depending on the condition, but in general it can continue for one to three...

Witnessing loss of life in any context is a traumatic experience. For veterans, who often have a higher probability of witnessing death than those in the general population, the experience can be compounded further because of the context in which they witness death. 

In combat situations, veterans not only...

How Is Sleep Apnea Related To PTSD?

There are several different types of sleep apnea, and every person with sleep apnea experiences the condition to differing degrees of severity. Considering that around 20 percent of veterans are diagnosed with sleep apnea at some point in their...

Under the legacy appeals system, veterans are sent a Supplemental Statement Of The Case (SSOC) by the agency of original jurisdiction when there are any material changes in, or additions to, the information included in the Statement of Case(SOC) or any prior SSOC. When this occurs, veterans can choose to ignore the...

Many veterans with VA disability claims are familiar with the VA’s reevaluation process. Whenever the VA determines that there is a need to verify the continued existence or severity of a disability, it will request that the veteran be reexamined and, if needed, have his or her compensation amount reevaluated....

When trying to get service connection for a seizure disorder like epilepsy or psychogenic non-epileptic seizures, veterans need to submit evidence to the VA to support their claim. One of the most useful types of evidence veterans can submit is a seizure log. A seizure log is a chronological record of...

Any veteran seeking service connection for a mental health condition will have to complete a Compensation and Pension (C&P) exam before the VA will decide his or her claim. The most important thing to remember with these exams is that the VA contracts out its examiners, meaning it uses physicians from...

When veterans apply for service connection for hearing loss, the VA will send them to a state-licensed audiologist to get their hearing evaluated. This exam will include a puretone audiometry test and a controlled speech discrimination test. A pure tone audiometry test measures the least audible sound that a person can...

Under the legacy appeals process, whenever a veteran received a Statement of the Case (SOC) that he or she wanted to appeal, he or she would use a VA Form 9. On this form, the veteran would lay out his or her arguments relating to errors of fact or law...