Spinal Cord Injury Veterans: Disability Benefits, Outcomes, and Health Care Utilization Patterns
Abstract
Rationale and Objective for the Proposed Work: Spinal cord injury (SCI) is among the most devastating and disabling medical conditions affecting wounded members of the military. The Veterans Affairs Healthcare System (VA) is the single largest SCI healthcare provider in the nation. The Veterans Benefits Administration offers financial compensation for disabilities sustained or re-aggravated during military service, which is called a "service connected" disability. Since the cost of living with an SCI can be overwhelming for SCI Veterans and their families, this monthly financial compensation provided to service-connected SCI Veterans can assist with access to supportive resources (e.g., assistive devices, personal aide) to help them sustain their functional independence, participate in their home life, employment, and social activities that might otherwise be inaccessible and maintain positive quality of life. Despite the VA s efforts to reduce the financial burden associated with successful rehabilitation, independent living and community integration through disability benefits, some SCI Veterans have non-service connected disabilities because their disabilities were not caused or aggravated by their military service. Our literature search did not find any studies that have compared the impact of having additional financial resources provided to service-connected SCI Veterans with non-service connected SCI-Veterans who do not have these additional financial resources. This project will address this gap by gathering information from SCI Veterans, their family caregivers, and SCI clinicians about the impact of this monetary compensation on their health and functioning, as well as access to assistive devices/resources, medical care, and rehabilitation. Types of Individuals the Project Will Help and How It Will Help Them: Service-connected and non-service connected SCI Veterans, family caregivers, SCI clinicians, and policymakers. When non-connected SCI Veterans choose not to apply or participate for service-connected disability, this may be due to lack of necessary knowledge about VA disability benefits and eligibility requirements to make an informed decision about their disability benefits. For example, a non-service connected Veteran who suffered an SCI due to a motorcycle accident, which exacerbated his diabetes that was diagnosed after his military service, may be eligible for service-connected disability compensation. SCI Veterans families also receive benefits associated with disability benefits. Due to the high cost of living with an SCI and its impacts on the SCI Veteran and his/her family, these results will help to solve some problems that the family household might have accessing resources, medical care, and rehabilitation for their SCI Veteran. The project will also help SCI clinicians understand access-to-care barriers that might limit their ability to provide comprehensive care and manage their clinical relationship with SCI Veterans. The results validate the intended use of VA disability compensation, which can be helpful to policymakers to develop design effective outreach strategies to assist all SCI Veterans. Potential Applications, Benefits, and Risks: For the non-service connected SCI Veterans and families, the results can help to increase their access to rehabilitative care and assistive resources not currently supported by their disability benefits. Understanding the potentially different outcomes associated with service-connection is important for several reasons. First, given the high cost of living with an SCI, monthly service-connected financial compensation can assist with cost of care, medications, assistive devices, home and automobile adaptation. Second, the outcomes of non-service connected SCI Veterans may identify system weaknesses that policymakers need to address. A risk is that the project findings may not be able to solve all of the problems associated with access t
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Apr 04, 2016
- Source ID
- W81XWH1510278
Entities
People
- Denise Fyffe
Organizations
- Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation
- United States Army