Parkinson’s

Stress and Your Parkinson’s Long-Term Disability Insurance Claim

Acute stress – be it financial, mental, or physical – can worsen the motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease (PD). That means stress can make freezing of gait, dyskinesia, and tremors worse, and may even accelerate the progression of your PD.

Chronic stress can also worsen non-motor PD symptoms, including anxiety and depression. That can be problematic if you have a disability insurance policy or plan with a broadly written mental nervous condition limitation.

What Is a Mental Nervous Limitation?

Many Long-Term Disability policies or plans have a mental nervous condition limitation provision that limits the payment of disability benefits to just two years. These policy limitations come in two forms.

The first is the mental nervous limitation that restricts benefits to two years if your disability is caused by mental nervous conditions like anxiety or depression. Often, it is a combination of motor and non-motor PD symptoms that are disabling.

The second – and far more problematic – is the mental nervous limitation that limits benefits to two years if your disability is caused or contributed to by stress, anxiety, or depression. It is the “contributed to” language that is problematic. Just the smallest contribution will result in the disability carrier terminating your benefits after two years. In other words, if your stress, depression, or anxiety is even 0.01% of your disability, that contribution can limit benefits to just two years.

Recent Medical Literature on Stress and PD

A recently published study in the journal Parkinson’s Disease, “Stress and Mindfulness in Parkinson’s Disease – A Survey in 5,000 Patients” (van der Heide, Speckens, et al. 2021), addressed a number of topics relevant to a disability claim. These include:

• Do people with PD have more stress?
• What PD symptoms are sensitive to stress?
• What strategies might help reduce stress if you have PD?

The study revealed that people with PD “scored significantly worse than those without PD in nearly every category, including anxiety, perceived stress, and depressed mood.”

Unfortunately, practically every PD symptom – including “sleeping problems, depression, dyskinesia, freezing of gait, and bradykinesia” – was made worse by stress. According to the study, “people with PD also added to the list of stress symptoms cognitive impairment, loss of focus, confusion, impaired executive function, speech and communication issues, emotional issues, and pain.”

The practice of mindfulness and physical exercise “improved PD symptoms.”

What Are the Practical Implications of Stress on Your Disability Insurance Claim?

If you have a disability insurance policy, you most likely will be required to apply for Social Security Disability benefits. Any and all of your medical issues – including psychiatric problems like depression or anxiety – can and should be part of your Social Security Disability claim.

However, if your policy has a broadly written mental nervous limitation clause that limits your benefits to two years if there is any contribution from psychiatric conditions, you’ll want to ensure that your medical records clearly state that your psychiatric problems do not contribute in any way to your continued disability.

It doesn’t matter that you might be legitimately depressed or anxious because of your PD diagnosis or symptoms. Even the smallest contribution to disability will limit your Long-Term Disability benefits.

As a result, in PD Long-Term Disability cases – and in PD Social Security Disability cases – you and your attorney must make a strategic decision to find a mental health provider who understands what must be stated in your medical records regarding whether your psychiatric issues, including stress and its impact, are disabling.

The second strategic decision is whether to file a claim for Social Security Disability benefits based on PD and depression or anxiety.

This is a policy-by-policy, medical-by-medical, and case-by-case decision that should be made in consultation with your ERISA and Social Security Disability attorney.

Hopefully, you have a lawyer like Nancy Cavey who handles both ERISA and Social Security Disability claims.