Anxiety grants at the Board split between direct service connection (onset during service, often with documented sick-call visits) and secondary connection to a physical service-connected condition. When a C&P examiner diagnoses anxiety instead of the claimed PTSD, the Board frequently grants under the Clemons doctrine — the claim covers the symptoms, not the specific label.
Top 5 recent grants
Ranked by decision date. Each card shows verbatim Findings of Fact and Reasons & Bases pulled directly from the Board's published decision — no summarization, no AI rewording.
Findings of Fact (verbatim from decision)
1. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Regional Office (RO) granted entitlement to service connection for irritable bowel syndrome, a gastrointestinal condition, in a December 2024 rating decision. There was no indication of clear and unmistakable error. 2. The RO also granted entitlement to service connection for OSA in a December 2024 rating decision. There was no indication of clear and unmistakable error. 3. The evidence is in approximate balance that the Veteran's vertigo was caused or aggravated by her service-connected conditions.
Reasons & Bases (verbatim from decision)
The Veteran served honorably on active duty in the United States Army from February 2006 through February 2010, with additional reserve service. She had over 1 year and 5 months of foreign service, including in Afghanistan, and was awarded the Afghanistan Campaign Medal (w/ Campaign Star), Joint Service Commendation Medal, Joint Service Achievement Medal, among others.
Findings of Fact (verbatim from decision)
1. From May 15, 2017, the Veteran's service-connected residuals of traumatic brain injury and other specified anxiety disorder most nearly approximated occupational and social impairment with deficiencies in "most areas," such as work, school, family relations, judgment, thinking, or mood. 2. From May 15, 2017, the evidence is at least in relative equipoise as to whether the Veteran is unable to secure and maintain substantially gainful employment as a result of his service-connected traumatic brain injury and other specified anxiety disorder and migraines headaches.
Reasons & Bases (verbatim excerpts from decision)
Entitlement to a 70 percent rating for residuals of traumatic brain injury and other specified anxiety disorder is granted from May 15, 2017. […] Hyphenated diagnostic codes indicate that the rating is by analogy; here, the rating is by analogy to TBI (Diagnostic Code 8045) and other specified anxiety disorder (Diagnostic Code 9410). […] Based on the evidence, the Board finds that the impact of the Veteran's residuals of traumatic brain injury and other specified anxiety disorder on his social and occupational functioning approximate the degree of impairment contemplated by a 70 percent rating, but no higher, from May 15, 2017. […] With respect to whether the Veteran was unemployable from May 15, 2017, the evidence is at least in equipoise concerning whether he was unable to secure or follow substantially gainful employment due to his service-connected traumatic brain injury and other specified anxiety disorder and migraines headaches. The TDIU determination ultimately is for the VA adjudicator, not the medical examiner. See Geib v. 3d 1350, 1354 (Fed. Cir. 2013). Pursuant to the "benefit-of-the-doubt" rule, where there is "an approximate balance of positive and negative evidence regarding the merits of an issue material to the determination of the matter," the Veteran shall prevail upon the issue. C. R. 3.
Findings of Fact (verbatim from decision)
The evidence demonstrates that the Veteran has a psychiatric disorder, characterized variously as PTSD, MDD with psychotic features, and GAD (hereinafter psychiatric disorder), and that psychiatric disorder is related to his military service.
Findings of Fact (verbatim from decision)
The Veteran's generalized anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder is related to his service.
Findings of Fact (verbatim from decision)
The Veteran has acquired psychiatric disorders, diagnosed as PTSD, depression, and anxiety, that are, as likely as not, causally related to the Veteran's active service, to include fear of hostile military or terrorist activity therein.
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The decisions above are the most recent grants — they may not match your specific nexus theory or fact pattern. The NexusVetClaims Precedent Brief runs a semantic search on your exact situation and returns 10 decisions (8 closest analogous matches + 2 instructive contrasts) as a filed-ready PDF with suggested citations and placement guidance for every VA form.
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How to use these decisions in your claim
- ›Clemons v. Shinseki: a claim for PTSD is a claim for any mental-health disorder the symptoms reasonably encompass.
- ›Service-connected chronic pain conditions reliably support secondary anxiety claims.
- ›Document specific triggers and limitations for the C&P examiner — generic "anxious mood" yields lower ratings.
- ›BVA decisions are non-precedential under 38 CFR § 20.1303 but the Board and rating officials regularly find recent analogous decisions persuasive — especially when your facts materially match.
- ›Paste the suggested-citation line into VA Form 21-4138 (Statement in Support of Claim), then attach the full decision PDF as an exhibit.
More BVA grant guides
BVA decisions are public-record Department of Veterans Affairs rulings. Under 38 CFR § 20.1303 they are non-precedential but may be cited as persuasive evidence of how the Board has treated similar facts. NexusVetClaims provides software, not legal representation. This page shows retrieval output from the nexusvetclaims.com BVA corpus and is updated as new decisions are indexed.