[Code of Federal Regulations]
[Title 38, Volume 1]
[Revised as of July 1, 2004]
From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access
[CITE: 38CFR4.15]

[Page 364-365]
 
            TITLE 38--PENSIONS, BONUSES, AND VETERANS' RELIEF
 
                CHAPTER I--DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS
 
PART 4_SCHEDULE FOR RATING DISABILITIES--Table of Contents
 
                   Subpart A_General Policy in Rating
 
Sec. 4.15  Total disability ratings.

    The ability to overcome the handicap of disability varies widely 
among individuals. The rating, however, is based primarily upon the 
average impairment in earning capacity, that is, upon the economic or 
industrial handicap which must be overcome and not from individual 
success in overcoming it. However, full consideration must be given to 
unusual physical or mental effects in individual cases, to peculiar 
effects of occupational activities, to defects in physical or mental 
endowment preventing the usual amount of success in overcoming the 
handicap of disability and to the effect of combinations of disability. 
Total disability will be considered to exist when there is present any 
impairment of mind or body which is sufficient to render it impossible 
for the average person to follow a substantially gainful occupation; 
Provided, That permanent total disability shall be taken to exist when 
the impairment is reasonably certain to continue throughout the life of 
the disabled person. The following will be considered to be permanent 
total disability: the permanent loss of the use of both hands, or of 
both feet, or of one

[[Page 365]]

hand and one foot, or of the sight of both eyes, or becoming permanently 
helpless or permanently bedridden. Other total disability ratings are 
scheduled in the various bodily systems of this schedule.