The medical component of employability
TDIU and other employability questions often require more than a list of diagnoses. A physician can help define what the documented conditions mean in practical functional terms: how long a person can sit or stand, whether repetitive use is sustainable, whether symptoms interfere with concentration or pace, whether unscheduled breaks are medically plausible, and whether treatment or medication creates additional limitations.
Valor’s role is to provide the medical analysis. The ultimate legal question of entitlement to TDIU belongs to the Department of Veterans Affairs and to counsel’s advocacy.
Functional domains reviewed
- Physical demands: lifting, carrying, walking, standing, sitting, climbing, reaching, bending, repetitive use, and positional tolerance.
- Attendance and reliability: flare frequency, treatment burden, episodic incapacitation, appointments, recovery time, and medically supported need for breaks.
- Pace and persistence: pain, fatigue, sleep disruption, headaches, medication effects, and other symptoms that may interfere with sustained task performance.
- Safety: fall risk, syncope, sedation, impaired dexterity, limitations around machinery or heights, and other medically relevant hazards.
- Communication and interaction: when physical symptoms, hearing, voice, neurologic deficits, or other medical factors materially affect work communication.
- Combined functional impact: how multiple conditions interact rather than evaluating each disability in isolation.
Longitudinal evidence matters
Employability is rarely captured by a single examination. Valor reviews the pattern over time—treatment intensity, flare behavior, objective findings, repeated complaints, functional statements, and changes in work tolerance. Where the record contains periods of improvement and worsening, those variations are addressed rather than flattened into a single snapshot.
Attorney-defined scope
Counsel may ask for analysis of one service-connected condition, the combined effects of several conditions, a disputed C&P functional assessment, or a specific question about sedentary versus physical work capacity. The report is organized around that assignment so the medical analysis remains relevant to the actual case.