Ratings of the Peripheral Nerves of the Low Back and Legs • Military Disability Made Easy

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Ratings of the Peripheral Nerves of the Low Back and Legs
Topics:
The Nerve Rating System
The Peripheral Nerves of the Low Back and Legs
Other Nervous Conditions
Principles that Apply

The Nervous System is divided over multiple pages: the Peripheral Nerves of the Upper Back and Arms, the Peripheral Nerves of the Low Back and Legs (this page), the Cranial Nerves, and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). Finally, all other nervous conditions can be found on The Central Nervous System page.

Reminder: The VA will give a Military Disability Rating for each service-connected condition a service member has, but the DoD will only rate service-connected conditions that make a service member Unfit for Duty.

Additional compensation is given by the VA for loss of use of the arms, legs and a few other body systems. If your nerve condition is severe enough that the affected body part is unable to function at all, you probably qualify. See the Special Monthly Compensation page to see if your particular condition qualifies.

The nervous system connects the brain to the rest of the body. Impulses travel up the nerves and spinal cord to the brain, and the brain then turns these impulses into ideas like pain, heat, etc. Similarly, the brain can send signals through the nerves to various parts of the body, telling it to raise the arm, point the toes, open and close the lungs to breathe, etc.

The nervous system is divided into two parts: the central nervous system, and the peripheral nervous system. The central nervous system consists of the brain, the spinal cord, and the cranial nerves. The peripheral nervous system is made up of all the nerves that travel from the spinal cord to the rest of the body.

The majority of nervous system conditions are rated on the symptoms they create. These symptoms could include mental illness (hallucinations and the like), trouble speaking, hearing, seeing, the inability to properly move the body, tremors, and more. For the VA, every symptom will be ratable, but for the DoD, since they only rate conditions that make a service member Unfit for Duty, they will only rate the symptoms that also make them unfit. Not every symptom a nerve condition causes will always be ratable for DoD Disability. If each symptom is not unfitting by itself, but the overall condition is, then only the worst symptom can be rated.

Note: There are a few times for these conditions that the VASRD uses vague terms like “severe.” The exact definition of terms like this is up to the opinion of the Rating Authorities, so unfortunately, we can’t really give you a more concrete definition than this. It may mean one thing to one person and something entirely different to someone else. What they are supposed to be keeping in mind when deciding ratings, however, is how much that condition affects your overall health and ability to work. If that is severely affected, then the Rating Authorities should consider it a “severe” condition. Hope that helps.