The Social Security Administration, according to Code § 416.945., assesses your residual functional capacity to determine your ability to perform work-related activities. This evaluation considers your physical and mental abilities, limitations, and restrictions caused by your disability.
As part of the physical capabilities evaluation, the SSA initially examines the type and degree of your physical restrictions before assessing your ability to perform tasks and execute work-related activities consistently. Restrictions in various physical tasks such as sitting, standing, carrying–or similar activities of bending, squatting, reaching, or handling–could lessen a person’s ability to engage in previous or alternative employment.
After a physical examination, the SSA will examine any mental restrictions. The examination of your mental skills begins with a review of the types and degrees of your cognitive constraints. Next, the SSA establishes your leftover mental capacity for maintaining work activities continuously. If you exhibit reduced proficiency in specific psychological functions, including suitable interactions with supervisors and peers in stressful workplace situations, comprehending information and completing instructions, or failing memory retention, this suggests lower potential to work, at the former or a different job.
Additional skills are impacted by disabilities. Certain verifiable medical conditions consisting of visual or auditory impairments or other sensory dysfunctions, conditions requiring situational accommodations, epilepsy, or dermatological ailments, can lead to barriers impacting various job-related skills. If you have any of these disabilities, the SSA considers how they may restrict your work capacity.
The SSA evaluates all your impairments, including less severe ones, when they don’t meet specific listed criteria to determine your work capacity. If you have more than one impairment, even if an impairment is considered “less severe,” the SSA will still fully evaluate your situation to determine residual work capacity. This evaluation includes the effects of damage on the body, which might limit your function beyond what medical tests alone can show. One person might only be able to manage light work due to physical distress for a sustained length of time, whereas someone else with a back issue could regularly handle moderate work. In determining how your conditions limit you, the SSA analyzes both medical and non-medical data to determine limits.
