Don’t Take Chances With a Dementia Diagnosis: Sean Kendall, Attorney at Law, Can Help You Protect Your Family and Your Finances
Dementia, a term used to describe conditions like Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body dementia, is a severe form of cognitive decline caused by the brain’s inability to protect its communications pathway. While many people have a risk of developing dementia in old age, Veterans often face challenges in training and in combat that increase their chances of receiving a significant life-altering diagnosis.
Although the Department of Veterans Affairs provides no-cost dementia care for former servicemen and women, the promise of a hospital bed is rarely enough to keep families afloat. Disability compensation can act as a lifeline of last resort, but getting approved and rated isn’t always easy. Read more to learn about how the VA rates dementia, or contact Sean Kendall, Attorney at Law, to find out what you need to file a successful appeal for your dementia-related VA benefits.
Lewy Body Dementia in Veterans
Most of us, no matter how strong and healthy we once were, eventually experience some form of cognitive decline. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, two-thirds of all adults begin struggling with certain executive tasks by the time they turn 70. Some of these challenges pose little more than a minor inconvenience, making it more difficult to remember names or acquire new skills. Other problems, though, start small but grow progressively worse, making it impossible to maintain a routine or live an independent life.
What Makes Lewy Body Dementia Different
Dementia isn’t a specific diagnosis. Instead, it’s a broad term used to describe a set of closely related neurological conditions. These include:
- Alzheimer’s disease, a progressive brain disorder that makes it difficult to think, communicate, and form new memories. It’s the most commonly diagnosed dementia, both among Veterans and in the general population.
- Lewy body dementia, which makes speaking, thinking, and moving difficult. Some people with Lewy body dementia also experience hallucinations. It’s the second-most common type of dementia after Alzheimer’s disease.
- Frontotemporal dementia, a subtype of dementia that affects the brain’s frontal and temporal lobes. It usually appears earlier than Alzheimer’s disease, and can affect people in their 40s and 50s. Most people with frontotemporal dementia have difficulty speaking and regulating their behavior.
- Vascular dementia, or dementia that’s most often caused by a stroke, clot, or other disruption to the brain’s blood supply.
Lewy body dementia is caused by an irregular buildup of protein deposits in the brain. These deposits, called “Lewy bodies,” accumulate inside neurons, prompting changes to the brain’s internal chemistry and causing neurons to die.
How Lewy Body Dementia Affects Your Brain and Body
Lewy body dementia often affects the way people think, move, sleep, and act. Common symptoms include:
- Difficulty paying attention, making plans, and multitasking
- Problems with vision and spatial tasks, like determining depth or identifying familiar objects
- Hallucinations, or seeing and hearing things that aren’t really there
- Muscle tremors and stiffness, sometimes termed “Parkinsonism”
- Sleep disorders, like trying to act out dreams while still asleep
Lewy body dementia takes a profound toll on patients’ general well-being. It’s frequently diagnosed alongside other depression, insomnia, and other VA-rated conditions.
The Two Types of Lewy Body Dementia
Lewy body dementia, like most dementia disorders, has more than one subtype. It can occur as either:
- Dementia with Lewy bodies, or DLB.
- Parkinson’s disease dementia, or PDD.
Both DLB and PDD cause similar symptoms, with doctors distinguishing between the two based on progression. In general, dementia with Lewy bodies moves more quickly than Parkinson’s disease dementia, as emotional, behavioral, and muscle-related disturbances all appear within the course of about one year.
Why Military Veterans Face Higher Risks
People who have served in the armed forces are much more likely to be diagnosed with dementia than civilians. Although nobody understands the exact causes of dementia, or what prompts dementia disorders to progress, researchers have identified numerous potential risk factors—many of which could be considered direct consequences of training, deployment, and combat.
Some of these proposed risk factors include:
- Toxic chemicals exposures
- Sustaining moderate to severe traumatic brain injuries, even if the injuries were treated or occurred a very long time ago
- Post-traumatic stress disorder
- Sleep disturbances, including insomnia
Conflict-specific factors can also influence an individual’s risk. A recent neurological study, for instance, found that Agent Orange exposure among Vietnam War Veterans appears to coincide with higher-than-expected rates of dementia. According to the report’s authors, Veterans exposed to Agent Orange are more than twice as likely to be diagnosed with dementia disorders than Vietnam War Veterans with no known history of Agent Orange exposure.
Disability Compensation for Dementia
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is supposed to ensure that servicemen and women receive the care they need to overcome almost any obstacle.
However, conditions like dementia often require resources that go beyond the need for a hospital bed. Even families who don’t have to pay out-of-pocket for treatment are usually forced to make difficult decisions about how best to provide for a loved one—decisions that can lead to an early retirement, or deplete retirement funds in their entirety. For Veterans facing a dementia diagnosis, disability compensation may serve as a lifeline, replacing ordinary sources of income and acting as a buffer against impending uncertainty.
How the VA Rates Dementia
The VA provides disability compensation to service people diagnosed with most forms of dementia, including Lewy body dementia. Ratings are typically assigned on the following basis:
- 0 percent. Early-stage cases of dementia that have yet to affect a veteran’s employment prospects or social life.
- 10 percent. Earlier-stage dementia that triggers some symptoms, but which can be controlled with medication and life-management strategies.
- 30 percent. Early- to mid-stage dementia, sometimes involving complications like depression and insomnia.
- 50 percent. More pronounced symptoms, which may include an inability to perform routine tasks or abrupt changes to mood and personality.
- 70 percent. Later-stage dementia, often characterized by significant mood disturbances, poor personal hygiene, and increasingly limited recall.
- 100 percent. Dementia may be categorized as totally disabling if its symptoms include visual hallucinations, auditory hallucinations, disorientation, or a total failure to care for oneself.
However, unlike other types of dementia-related benefits, disability compensation isn’t automatic. To qualify, Veterans or their family caregivers must be able to establish a connection between their previous military service and their diagnosis.
How We Help You Establish a Service Connection for Lewy Body Dementia
Although Lewy body dementia is sometimes diagnosed in younger men and women, most Veterans affected by this condition have long since left the armed forces. This means establishing a service connection can be difficult, even if you have good reason to believe that a combat injury or training accident raised your lifetime risk of dementia.
You don’t have to take chances with your right to disability compensation. Sean Kendall, Attorney at Law, has spent decades helping Veterans secure the resources they need to ensure their well-being and provide for their families. Our team could reinforce your dementia disability appeal by:
- Locating and compiling old or difficult-to-find service records.
- Reviewing your medical records.
- Advising on how to appeal an adverse determination.
- Regularly reviewing your case to ensure that a disability rating reflects the severity of progressive Lewy body dementia symptoms.
- Ensuring you receive compensation for service-connected conditions secondary to dementia, like depression, insomnia, or anxiety.
- Working with your family to preserve legacy benefits for your loved ones.
No matter where you are in the world, our team is ready to get to work to pursue the disability benefits you deserve but have been foregone.