Can I claim PIP for Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD)?

This guide provides insights into GAD and its potential impact on daily living and mobility. It explains how GAD can help you to complete your PIP form and how it might affect your ability to carry out everyday activities safely, effectively, accurately, and repeatedly.

Symptoms

Common Symptoms

There are a wide range of symptoms associated with Anxiety, some of which are listed below:

Panic is the severest form of anxiety and may lead to people experiencing panic attacks which can include some of the above symptoms. Panic attacks can come on quickly and without warning.

How often

Anxiety symptoms can vary day to day depending on many factors, this may impact how severe your symptoms are and the help you need to manage them. This could be because of what has happened or is happening in your life. Whatever the reason PIP looks at how you are most of the time, 51%. If for most days, you need an aid or support or prompting then that should be included in your PIP claim.

Daily living descriptors

In this section we will look at each of the daily living descriptors and break down how each may be impacted due to Anxiety. Remember this is only looking at how Anxiety may affect you so if you have other conditions or symptoms that are not mentioned do included these when completing your PIP claim.

Preparing Food

In this descriptor they are looking at your ability to cook a simple meal from fresh ingredients. You may experience the following:

Do you use a perching stool when feeling dizzy?
Do you have panic attacks whilst cooking and what happens? Has this resulted in near misses and accidents?
Do you need prompting, assistance or supervision from another person while preparing food because of your anxiety?
Low mood, lack of motivation may mean that you can’t get motivated to cook and will just simple eat what is to hand or need prompting to go and cook or keep cooking.
Do you just have food you can microwave or that doesn’t need preparing?
Pins and needles may affect your ability to prepare/cook a simple meal from fresh ingredients

Eating and drinking

You may experience the following when eating and drinking:

Having a reduced appetite because of anxiety
Prompting by someone else to start or finish a meal.
You may not want to eat either due to anxiety, not feeling hungry, feeling nauseous, low mood or lack of motivation. Do you need someone to prompt you to eat? If you have lost weight or been prescribed supplement drinks due to not eating include this on your PIP claim.
Pins and needles like sensation or pain in your fingers and hands may mean that you struggle with cutting up your food.
You may have dysphagia (difficulty swallowing) due to your anxiety leading to a risk or fear of choking, do you require assistance cutting up food into small enough pieces or supervision when eating and drinking.
Do you have an eating disorder?
Do you perform rituals around food?

Managing Treatments

This descriptor examines how you manage health-related treatments, and you may find:

Using an aid such as a pill box to organise medication safely.
Anxiety impacts your ability to safely take your medication.
Needing someone else to help manage medication safely.
Another person prompts, assists or supervises you when going to medical appointments such as counselling Do you need someone to be prompting, assistance, or supervision when taking you take your medication, so you do not forget because you are distracted by your anxiety symptoms

Washing and bathing

This looks at the ability of being able to bath or shower and what issues you may experience:

Do you have aids such as grab rails and slip mats in the bathroom to keep you safe while washing?
Do you have a shower seat or bath board so you can sit down to wash?
Do you lack the motivation to wash due to feeling anxious?
Does the bathroom environment trigger your anxiety causing you to rush and not wash properly?
Do you need supervising whilst washing because you feel a disconnect to the outside world?
Do you have a fear of washing and as a result avoid washing?
Do your anxiety symptoms include negative reoccurring thoughts about your body?
Do you need prompting, assistance or supervision to mentally cope with the process of washing?
Prompting from another person to wash.
Supervision whilst washing due to safety in the bathroom from injury such as fainting or falling.

Using the toilet and managing incontinence

This descriptor is about the ability to use a toilet independently and to be able clean yourself afterwards and have no continence issues:

Aids are needed to get on and off the toilet or furniture in the bathroom such as radiators, the sink etc.
Loss of control of your bowel or bladder due to feeling disconnected to your body when your anxiety is increasing.
Wearing incontinence pads.
Due frequent urination or bowel issues do you need to use the toilet more often due to your anxiety? Do you need to change your clothes when you have lost control of your bladder or bowels? How many times a week does this happen?
Due to pain, dizziness or balance issues do you need supervision whilst toileting to ensure you are safe?
When going out, do you take a change of clothing with you, just in case?
Pain and numbness or pins and needles like sensation may make it difficult for you to clean yourself after using the toilet

Dressing and undressing

This looks at whether you can dress and undress yourself and choose appropriate clothing:

Struggle to fasten underwear.
Using aids to put clothing and footwear on such as a shoehorn.
Cannot fasten clothing/footwear with buttons, zips and laces and choose easy to wear clothing and slip on footwear due to numbness and tingling in your fingers
You wear dirty clothes as you cannot manage to change them due to lack of motivation, low mood or your anxiety
Think about timings and resting times. You may need to sleep after the process of getting dressed/undressed.
Do you need help from someone to choose appropriate clothing?
Can you dress your upper and lower body without feeling anxious?
Do you have anxiety linked to your personal appearance which means you spend ages choosing what to wear and swapping clothes taking you longer to get dressed compared to another person?
You have reoccurring negative thoughts that distract you whilst dressing

Communicating Verbally

This looks at someone anxiety and whether they can understand and convey verbal information:

Another person helps you to communicate or to be understood due to your anxiety.

Due to your anxiety do you experience you are unable to speak to people, even if you know them

Your anxiety prevents you from listening, processing and understanding information

Your anxiety prevents you from responding verbally due to being unable to formulate a response, being severely anxious, having a panic attack etc

Reading understanding signs, Symbols and Words

This looks at someone’s ability to read and understand basic and complex written information:

This section can be left blank. However, if you have other health conditions and/or a disability, these may affect you moving around so you need to include any relevant information in this section

Mixing with other people

Anxiety can mean you struggle socially and find it difficult due to:

The symptoms of anxiety makes you feel self-conscious when around other people.
Needing support from someone else as you struggle to engage on your own.
Mixing with people is too overwhelming and you want to leave the situation.
If you have any aids that support your ability to engage with other people face to face such as noise cancelling headphones or sunglasses?
Due to anxiety do you become extremely distressed when dealing with people?
Do you avoid social situations due to your anxiety?
Do negative reoccurring thoughts stop you from following and taking part in a conversation with other people or makes this task difficult?
Are you unable to mix with people due to anxiety?
Do you suffer from panic attacks when attempting or mixing with people?
Do you become so anxious you do not speak to people?
Does having someone with you make you feel calmer or prevent a panic attack?
Do you need prompting, assistance or supervision to mix with other people?
Have you cancelled or not turned up to appointments or not attended family or social events due to your anxiety?
Due to frequent urination or bowel issues because of your anxiety, do you feel self-conscious about potential having an accident so just avoid going out and engaging with people?

Managing money

This descriptor looks at if someone with anxiety can manage their money:

Due to anxiety or the side effects of your medication it may be hard for you to manage your household budget or a single purchase.
Do you need prompting or assistance from someone to manage this?
Are you in debt due to anxiety or the side effects of your medication meaning you forget to pay your bills.
Due to anxiety would you be able to deal with in coming bills online or over the phone? Would you need prompting or support with this?
Do you feel anxious when faced with paying bills or planning a purchase?
Do you make over payments or forget to pay a bill on time?
Do you over worry about making a budgeting mistake? Would you ask someone for help?
Has anyone helped you set up your bank account and direct debits?
When you make cash payments do you know the amount of change you should be given?
Do you need prompting, assistance or supervision to make budgeting decisions?

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Mobility Descriptors

These evaluate how COPD may affect mobility related tasks. This is not an exhaustive list; ensure all relevant details are included in your application.

Planning and following a journey

Anxiety may make planning and following a journey challenging:

Due to anxiety or the side effects of your medication you may struggle to follow bus or train timetables or read maps to plan a journey or you take more than time than would be reasonable expected.
Are you reluctant to start a journey and need prompting and encouragement to begin a journey or to keep going during a journey?
Do you become overwhelmingly distressed that you must stop or need help to manage your symptoms or support you to return home?
You are unable to travel by public transport due to being around people?
Due to anxiety, poor attention or the side effects of your medication etc you are unable to follow a route
Does anxiety prevent you continuing your journey if you are alone??
Do you feel overwhelmed when preparing to leave the house?
How do you feel if your journey is interrupted due to road works, an accident etc and you have to change your route?
Do you get overwhelmed if you become lost on a journey?
Do you attempt a journey but due to your anxiety levels and becoming overwhelmed you stop and go home?

Moving around looks at your ability to stand and walk up to 200 metres with or without an aid.

Anxiety may not score points for PIP for this activity. Do detail any other health conditions that negatively impact on your ability to physically move.

Finally…

It is important that when you complete your PIP form, that you include how COPD affects you in relation to each descriptor. Ensure that you give specific examples, under each descriptor, where you have struggled due to your conditions, where appropriate. It is important that you include any aids, adaptations or support/supervision that you need to help you complete each activity, where appropriate.

Please remember that this is not a complete list and if you have other symptoms or conditions that affect this descriptor, they need to be included on your PIP claim. More information can be found at www.gov.uk