[Title 20 CFR 404.1545]
[Code of Federal Regulations (annual edition) - April 1, 1996 Edition]
[Title 20 - EMPLOYEES' BENEFITS]
[Chapter III - SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION]
[Part 404 - FEDERAL OLD-AGE, SURVIVORS AND DISABILITY INSURANCE (1950- )]
[Subpart P - Determining Disability and Blindness]
[Sec. 404.1545 - Your residual functional capacity.]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]


20EMPLOYEES' BENEFITS21996-04-011996-04-01false404.1545Sec. 404.1545EMPLOYEES' BENEFITSSOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATIONFEDERAL OLD-AGE, SURVIVORS AND DISABILITY INSURANCE (1950- )Determining Disability and Blindness
Sec. 404.1545  Your residual functional capacity.

    (a) General. Your impairment(s), and any related symptoms, such as 
pain, may cause physical and mental limitations that affect what you can 
do in a work setting. Your residual functional capacity is what you can 
still do despite your limitations. If you have more than one impairment, 
we will consider all of your impairment(s) of which we are aware. We 
will consider your ability to meet certain demands of jobs, such as 
physical demands, mental demands, sensory requirements, and other 
functions, as described in paragraphs (b), (c), and (d) of this section. 
Residual functional capacity is an assessment based upon all of the 
relevant evidence. It may include descriptions (even your own) of 
limitations that go beyond the symptoms, such as pain, that are 
important in the diagnosis and treatment of your medical condition. 
Observations by your treating or examining physicians or psychologists, 
your family, neighbors, friends, or other persons, of your limitations, 
in addition to those observations usually made during formal medical 
examinations, may also be used. These descriptions and observations, 
when used, must be considered along with your medical records to enable 
us to decide to what extent your impairment(s) keeps you from performing 
particular work activities. This assessment of your remaining capacity 
for work is not a decision on whether you are disabled, but is used as 
the basis for determining the particular types of work you may be able 
to do despite your impairment(s). Then, using the guidelines in 
Secs. 404.1560 through 404.1569a, your vocational background is 
considered along with your residual functional capacity in arriving at a 
disability determination or decision. In deciding whether your 
disability continues or ends, the residual functional capacity 
assessment may also be used to determine whether any medical improvement 
you have experienced is related to your ability to work as discussed in 
Sec. 404.1594.
    (b) Physical abilities. When we assess your physical abilities, we 
first assess the nature and extent of your physical limitations and then 
determine your residual functional capacity for work activity on a 
regular and continuing basis. A limited ability to perform certain 
physical demands of work activity, such as sitting, standing, walking, 
lifting, carrying, pushing, pulling, or other physical functions 
(including manipulative or postural functions, such as reaching, 
handling, stooping or crouching), may reduce your ability to do past 
work and other work.
    (c) Mental abilities. When we assess your mental abilities, we first 
assess the nature and extent of your mental limitations and restrictions 
and then determine your residual functional capacity for work activity 
on a regular and continuing basis. A limited ability to carry out 
certain mental activities, such as limitations in understanding, 
remembering, and carrying out instructions, and in responding 
appropriately to supervision, co-workers, and work pressures in a work 
setting, may reduce your ability to do past work and other work.
    (d) Other abilities affected by impairment(s). Some medically 
determinable impairment(s), such as skin impairment(s), epilepsy, 
impairment(s) of vision, hearing or other senses, and impairment(s) 
which impose environmental restrictions, may cause limitations and 
restrictions which affect other work-related abilities. If you have this 
type of impairment(s), we consider any resulting limitations and 
restrictions which may reduce your ability to do past work and other 
work in deciding your residual functional capacity.
    (e) Total limiting effects. When you have a severe impairment(s), 
but your symptoms, signs, and laboratory findings do not meet or equal 
those of a listed impairment in Appendix 1 of this subpart, we will 
consider the limiting effects of all your impairment(s), even those that 
are not severe, in determining your residual functional capacity.

[[Page 339]]

Pain or other symptoms may cause a limitation of function beyond that 
which can be determined on the basis of the anatomical, physiological or 
psychological abnormalities considered alone; e.g., someone with a low 
back disorder may be fully capable of the physical demands consistent 
with those of sustained medium work activity, but another person with 
the same disorder, because of pain, may not be capable of more than the 
physical demands consistent with those of light work activity on a 
sustained basis. In assessing the total limiting effects of your 
impairment(s) and any related symptoms, we will consider all of the 
medical and nonmedical evidence, including the information described in 
Sec. 404.1529(c).

[56 FR 57943, Nov, 14, 1991]