Oklahoma Disability Attorney: How to Describe Your Daily Activities

One of the key considerations the Social Security Administration must make in determining if you are disabled is the impact your impairment has on your daily life, which your Oklahoma disability attorney will explain to you. To these ends, you will be asked many times during the applications or appeals process to describe your daily activities. As always, it is very important that you answer accurately and thoroughly.

In fact, questions about your daily activities are actually great opportunities to give the Social Security Administration relevant details that could help your case. Some claimants make a very big mistake by giving vague or otherwise uninformative answers. For example, you should never describe yourself as typically doing “nothing” all day. This is not an answer. Lying in bed all day or sitting and watching TV all day both still qualify as “doing something.” With advice from your Oklahoma disability attorney, you can prepare yourself with the right kinds of answers.

Another common mistake claimants make when describing their daily activities is to simply give a schedule of your day without any information about your impairment. For example, telling a judge that you cook meals, do laundry, and run errands on a typical day does not tell the judge anything useful. Remember, you are being asked about your daily activities so the Social Security Administration can understand the effects of your impairment, so any description of your schedule that does say anything about your impairment is useless.

So when you tell the judge you cook meals, mention how you can only cook simple meals because you are in too much pain to stand up for long periods of time. When you tell the judge you do the laundry, mention how you are unable to do the laundry without help. And when you tell the judge you run errands, mention how you need someone else to drive, because you cannot grip the steering wheel. An Oklahoma disability attorney can give you further advice for your testimony.

Finally, you should also mention how your schedule has changed as a result of your impairment. What were you able to regularly before that your impairment prevents you from doing now? This can give the person evaluating your case much more insight into your disability than a straight schedule.
The application and appeals process for Social Security disability benefits can be complicated. However, we can make the process smoother for you. Call our Oklahoma disability attorney, today for a free consultation.