WASHINGTON — For more than 50 years, the VA Schedule for Rating Disabilities (VASRD) has been the mechanism for determining how much disability compensation is provided to veterans. While the system has seen minor adjustments over time, a sweeping revision has never been attempted — until now.

On average, more than 30 times a day across the VHA, patients outside the operating room require emergency-airway management. It is literally a life-or-death situation, as failure to establish an airway can result in brain damage or death within minutes.

STONY BROOK, NY --While burn pits have been the focus of a controversy for years about causes of high rates of respiratory illnesses among military personnel deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, evidence increasingly paints a more complex — and far more difficult to address — picture.

For the past five years, VA has struggled to implement a systemwide weight-reduction program to combat obesity rates among veterans receiving care. More than one-third of veterans receiving care qualified as obese in 2006, and VA believed that lowering obesity also would lower weight-related illness, including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, osteoarthritis and hypertension — all of which occur in high rates among VA’s population. ¹

WASHINGTON — Eye wounds are devastating for deployed troops, and the past decade’s conflicts have created ample opportunities for that type of injury, with the prevalence of explosive devices, projectiles, chemicals, biohazards, lasers and extreme environmental conditions.

FORT HARRISON, MT — For some veterans, “insulin resistance” is not only a physiological condition, it is a state of mind — one the VA Montana Healthcare System in Fort Harrison hopes to overcome with a program that pilots the use of insulin pens.

WASHINGTON — In an effort to present a kinder, gentler and more responsive side of the VA, agency leaders are seeking to engage more veterans via social media. The hope is that, by leveraging popular online platforms, VA will be able to better connect and respond more immediately to veterans and their needs.

Several recently released studies conducted by a number of federal agencies examine the effects of combat on women, who now make up 15% of American military forces.

WASHINGTON — Continuing a pattern of easing the way for Gulf War veterans to seek care and compensation, VA has extended the presumptive period for them to file claims for benefits for previously undiagnosed illnesses.

WASHINGTON — Work therapy has been a part of VA rehabilitative programs for decades, but only since 1984 has it been codified under a national clinical initiative. With the return of the latest generation of veterans, who are entering VA care when a more holistic approach to treatment and rehabilitation is taken, compensated work therapy (CWT) has begun to be embraced fervently by veterans and clinicians.