Disability Benefits for Panic Disorder or Panic Attacks

When talking about Disability Benefits due to Panic Disorders or Panic Attacks, across the United States there are many petitions filed seeking disability for Panic Attacks. It is estimated that about 10% of applications received every year seeking disability are those for Panic Attacks.

Panic Disorders or Panic Attacks is not a single entity but a combination of other psychiatric conditions like Depression and fear or phobias like Agarophobia or a fear of crowd or people. It is also estimated that Panic Attacks occurs quite frequently among the general population in the United States.

To define Panic Disorders or Panic Attacks, it can be stated as a combination of episodes of extreme fear as if something terrible is going to happen to you or someone accompanied with other symptoms like feeling of a racing heart or what is medically called as palpitations, dizziness, sense of being off balance, in some cases shortness of breath, chest pain which may make the person think that he or she is about to die.

During a Panic Attack, the individual is not in a position to interact with anyone or do any useful tasks. If these attacks are few and far between then it is not a major cause for concern. It is when these attacks become more frequent does it start to interfere with an individual’s personal and family life and may render a person disabled and not be effective in any form of employment, especially if it requires dealing with people, making presentations, or jobs like marketing, sales, and the like.

Some may suggest that the affected individual may be just a bit too much stressed but Panic Disorders are completely different from fatigue caused due to stress in that Panic Attacks come on out of the blue and the individual may have an attack even at times where he or she is completely stress free at rest.

Now coming to the question whether Panic Disorder or Panic Attacks qualifies for SSD/SSI benefits, then the claimant may be able to qualify for disability benefits due to Panic Disorder if the claimant has frequent attacks of immense sense of fear or a sensation of impending doom with the frequency of attacks being on an average of at least once per week and moreover these attacks need to come all of a sudden and be unpredictable. Additionally, the Panic Disorders or Panic Attacks should be so severe that it should affect the claimant’s ability to handle social environment efficiently like interacting with a group of people without any problems. These attacks should also be severe enough making it tough for the claimant to leave the house for work. It should also prohibit the claimant to complete a given task on time and efficiently so much so that it should even be difficult for the claimant to do everyday tasks like eating, cooking, dressing and the like.

In order to successfully get SSD/SSI benefits due to a Panic Disorder, the claimant needs to first have a documented evidence of being diagnosed with a Panic Disorder or Panic Attacks given by a Mental Health Professional. In the documentation, it should be mentioned the duration of the condition, the treatments that are being given to the claimant be it therapies or medications, whether the claimant is compliant with the treatment rendered and what is the response of the treatment.

Additionally, the SSA Judge will also look into the medical records to know how is the Panic Disorder or Panic Attacks rendering the claimant disabled or causing functional limitations. The medical records of mental health professional should also clearly mention as to what triggers a Panic Attack in the claimant, the frequency of the attacks, the severity of the attacks, and in which ways do they affect the claimant and prohibit the claimant from performing tasks effectively. In order to prove all this, the claimant will need to maintain a consistent physician-patient relationship with his or her mental health provider and maintain a complete documentation of whatever treatment or therapies that the claimant has undergone towards management of Panic Disorder or Panic Attacks, as these documented notes are the best means to get SSD/SSI benefits for panic disorders or panic attacks.

Even if a claimant has enough documented evidence of Panic Disorder or Panic Attack favoring his or her claim, if it is not presented in front of the judge in an appropriate way, the claimant may not be able to get the decision in his or her favor. For this, the claimant needs to hire an experienced disability attorney who can prepare and present the claimant’s case in the best possible way so that disability benefit is granted for the functional limitations caused due to panic disorder. An experienced SSD attorney would have significant knowledge as to what the judge might require of the claimant during the hearing and what is the other relevant information that needs to be furnished in front of the judge at the time of hearing to win a disability claim for panic disorder or panic attack. It should be noted here that an SSD attorney gets paid only after the claimant has been granted disability benefit, thus the attorney does all he or she can to get the claimant suffering from panic disorder the disability benefits.

In summary, an individual with a confirmed diagnosis of Panic Disorder or Panic Attacks to such an extent that he or she is unable to be gainfully employed in any position and does not meet criteria for a vocational training should work in close relationship with his or her mental health professional and an experienced SSD attorney so as to get qualified for Social Security Disability Benefits due to Panic Disorder.