Hey, veterans.
Travis Studdard, veterans' disability attorney here again to talk to you about another way
that VA may rate your cardiac disability.
If you saw my last video, in that one I talked about ejection fractions and how those can
measure the left ventricular dysfunction in your heart and how well your heart pumps blood.
Those ejection fractions are relevant at the 100% and 60% disability rating levels.
But now I want to talk to you about the lower level 30% disability rating and a couple of
ways that your doctor may be able to prove where you should be rated based on some objective
diagnostic testing.
So the first of those is at the 30% rating level, you're entitled to that if you show
evidence of cardiac hypertrophy, which cardiac hypertrophy is essentially a thickening of
the heart muscle, which means a decreased volume in the heart cavity itself.
Again, as that muscle thickens, that cavity inside just gets that much smaller.
So that's one way to get a 30% rating.
The flip side of that is cardiac dilatation.
And cardiac dilatation is essentially a enlargement of the heart cavity.
So at that point, again if you have that, then you would be entitled to a 30% rating.
Now both of these must be shown through some sort of objective imagine study or other testing
that can be an image study, maybe an X-ray or you can also have an echocardiogram or
an electrocardiogram that show evidence of either hypertrophy or dilatation.
So if your doctor tells you that you have an enlarged heart, or a thickening of the
heart muscle.
Then those should key you in to where you may be entitled for a VA disability rating.
One other way I want to talk to you about where your doctor may be able to use some
objective testing to prove your level of VA disability is with a treadmill stress test.
And if you've seen my previous videos on heart disability ratings, I talk about what I call
the symptoms based method.
And your level of physical exertion and then symptoms such as dizziness or fainting or
chest pain that you may experience based on how strenuous the activity is.
And a good way to prove that accurately and very determinatively is with a treadmill stress
test.
And the doctor can dial in exactly what Metz level your exerting yourself at.
And again, Metz is essentially your metabolic equivalent threshold, but how hard our body
and heart are working.
And again, it's not subjective.
They put you at a certain pace on the treadmill.
They know exactly how hard your heart is working.
And then they wait for those symptoms to present.
So again, and that can be relevant at the 30% level as well.
So again, the treadmill stress test, I think is a better way to prove your Metz score rather
than the interview based method, which is essentially the doctor asking you questions.
Can you do this?
Can you do that?
When do you become dizzy?
When do you feel faint?
Again, they don't have to rely on you for that.
They can get it from the test results themselves.
So again, that's two different ways, either changes in the heart muscle itself based on
testing or putting you on a treadmill and seeing what you can and cannot do without
symptoms.
Again, hope that helps.
If you have more questions, check out my website where we have articles on this and many other
topics relating to disabilities and VA disability compensation in general.
Check out our other videos.
Give this one a thumbs up and see you next time.