Nov 18, 2008

Hearing On Compassionate Allowances For Brain Damage

Commissioner Astrue held a public hearing today on his compassionate allowance scheme. This hearing concerned traumatic brain injuries and strokes and featured speakers from the Department of Defense and the National Institutes of Health.

Traditionally, Social Security has been anything but compassionate or quick in making disability determinations in brain damage cases. Social Security's standard practice is to delay decisions in these cases for months and months in hope of improvement and then to be oblivious to anything other than the most obvious effects of brain damage. Frontal lobe damage, which has its effects primarily upon personality, is completely ignored in most cases. State of the art neuropsychological testing is treated as unimportant.

No comments: