How to file for disability, Filing for SSI
Disability Requirements, Disability Status
How long is the wait?, Disability Application
The Social Security List of Impairments
Qualifying for Disability, Mental Disability
Disability Lawyer Info, Disability Back Pay

Facts about Meningitis and Filing for Disability

These selected pages answer some of the most basic, but also some of the most important, questions for individuals who are considering filing a claim for disability benefits.

How to apply for disability and the information that Social Security needs

Who will qualify for disability and what qualifying is based on

Requirements for disability - Qualifications Criteria for SSD and SSI

How to Prove you are disabled and win your disability benefits

Facts about the condition

1) The membranes around the spinal cord and brain are called ‘meninges’. When these protective membranes become inflamed due to various microorganisms, bacteria, viral infections, and fungal infections, it causes changes to the cerebrospinal fluid and is called meningitis.

2) Meningitis may also develop due to the use of certain drugs, inflammatory diseases, and some cancers, though these causes are much less common than meningitis due to bacteria and/or viruses.

3) Depending upon the case, meningitis can be short-term and easily resolved without medications or treatment, or can be serious, severe and life threatening.

4) Symptoms of meningitis for adults involve headache, sensitivity to light, fever, nausea/vomiting, sleepiness, confusion, stiff neck, loss of appetite, and seizures. Symptoms for infants include poor feeding, relentless crying (sometimes more intense crying upon being picked up), irritability, stiff neck and body, and bulging of the soft spot on head.

5) Viral meningitis is not usually sever, but bacterial meningitis is serious, fatal, can cause brain damage, and needs treatment right away. Other potential complications due to meningitis include deafness, loss of vision, and ‘water on the brain’.

6) Treatment for viral meningitis is pretty simple: bed rest, lots of fluids, and some pain meds, and possibly antiviral medication; It usually resolves itself. Bacterial meningitis is another story; immediate intravenous antibiotics and possibly treatment for dehydration, seizures and brain swelling. If water on the brain is present it may require surgery for fluid drainage.

7) There are certain risk factors for developing meningitis. They include working with animals, having a weakened immune system, being pregnant, and living or spending a lot of time in a community setting where the disease can spread quickly.

8) Although bacterial meningitis was mainly found in infants around the age of 15 months old, vaccines have changed the median age drastically. These days bacterial meningitis rarely affects infants and is now usually found in those around the age of 25 years old.

Qualifying for disability benefits with this condition

Whether or not you qualify for disability and, as a result, are approved for disability benefits will depend entirely on the information obtained from your medical records.

This includes whatever statements and treatment notes that may have been obtained from your treating physician (a doctor who has a history of treating your condition and is, therefore, qualified to comment as to your condition and prognosis). It also includes discharge summaries from hospital stays, reports of imaging studies (such as xrays, MRIs, and CT scans) and lab panels (i.e. bloodwork) as well as reports from physical therapy.

In many disability claims, it may also include the results of a report issued by an independent physician who examines you at the request of the Social Security Administration.

Qualifying for SSD or SSI benefits will also depend on the information obtained from your vocational, or work, history if you are an adult, or academic records if you are a minor-age child. In the case of adults, your work history information will allow a disability examiner (examiners make decisions at the initial claim and reconsideration appeal levels, but not at the hearing level where a judges decides the outcome of the case) to A) classify your past work, B) determine the physical and mental demands of your past work, C) decide if you can go back to a past job, and D) whether or not you have the ability to switch to some type of other work.

The important thing to keep in mind is that the social security administration does not award benefits based on simply having a condition, but, instead, will base an approval or denial on the extent to which a condition causes functional limitations. Functional limitations can be great enough to make work activity not possible (or, for a child, make it impossible to engage in age-appropriate activities).

For the sake of clarity, SSDRC.com is not the Social Security Administration, nor is it associated or affiliated with SSA. This site is a personal, private website that is published, edited, and maintained by former caseworker and former disability claims examiner, Tim Moore, who was interviewed by the New York Times on the topic of Social Security Disability and SSI benefits in an article entitled "The Disability Mess" and also by the Los Angeles Times on the subject of political attempts to weaken the Social Security Disability system.

The goal of the site is to provide information about how Social Security Disability and SSI work, the idea being that qualified information may help claimants pursue their claims and appeals, potentially avoiding time-consuming mistakes. If you find the information on this site helpful and believe it would be helpful to others, feel free to share links to its homepage or other pages on website resource pages, blogs, or social media. Copying of this material, however, is prohibited.

To learn more about the author, please visit the SSDRC.com homepage and view the "about this site" link near the bottom of the page.