EGAN, C.J.
Claimant seeks review of an order of the Workers Compensation Board upholding SAIFs denial of her injury claim for medical services for a left elbow condition. We review the boards order for substantial evidence and error of law, ORS 183.482(8), ORS 656.298(7), conclude that the board did not err, and therefore affirm.
Claimant works for employer as a sign language interpreter. While interpreting for a class, claimant felt something tweak in her arm and began to experience pain in her elbow. Medical evidence shows that claimants elbow pain, although first experienced while claimant was signing, was a symptom of conditions that developed over time (medial epicondylitis and ulnar neuropathy ) that were not caused by claimants work activity.
Claimant pursued her claim on an injury theory, seeking compensation for the treatment of her elbow condition. The board determined that claimants claim should properly be analyzed as an occupational disease and rejected it, finding that there was insufficient proof of an occupational disease.
On judicial review, claimant contends that the board mistakenly jumped to determine the nature of claimants condition, without first determining whether it was compensable as an injury. Claimant asserts that, irrespective of the conditions underlying her symptoms, claimants work event constituted an injury, as defined in ORS 656.005 (7)(a), and that the board mistakenly focused on the cause of claimants symptoms rather than on the compensability of the work injury. In claimants view, the only question that should have been addressed was whether the incident at work was a material cause of the need for treatment of the elbow condition; if so, claimant contends, the claim is compensable as an injury.
Claimants approach is not consistent with our case law and would require a departure from the way claims are traditionally analyzed. The board is required in its analysis of a claim to apply the correct legal standard, and to do so, it must determine the nature of the claim. It is within the boards authority to determine that a claim brought on an injury theory is properly characterized as an occupational disease claim. DiBrito v. SAIF , 319 Or. 244, 248, 875 P.2d 459 (1994) ([I]n reviewing the record of a workers compensation claim, the Boards first task is to determine which provisions of the Workers Compensation Law are applicable.); see Clark v. Erdman Meat Packing , 88 Or.App. 1, 4-5, 744 P.2d 255 (1987), rev. den. , 305 Or. 102, 750 P.2d 496 (1988) ; ONeal v. Sisters of Providence , 22 Or.App. 9, 12-13, 537 P.2d 580 (1975) (ultimate decision as to compensability turns on whether the claimants condition is properly characterized as an injury or an occupational disease). Claimants approach would bypass that preliminary step. It is true that claimant has not pursued an occupational disease theory of compensability, but the fact that she pursues only an injury theory does not obviate the need to determine whether the symptoms for which she seeks compensation have their origin in an injury. The medical evidence demonstrates that they do not. Rather, the medical evidence supports the boards finding that claimants symptoms were caused by preexisting conditions in her elbow and shoulder.
Citing this courts opinion in Brown v. SAIF , 262 Or.App. 640, 325 P.3d 834 (2014), revd , 361 Or. 241, 391 P.3d 773 (2017), claimant contends that, in order to determine whether she has suffered a compensable injury, there is no reason to explore the nature of her condition; the fact of an injurious event at work causing symptoms and requiring treatment is sufficient, in her view, to establish an injury under ORS 656.005(7) (A compensable injury is an accidental injury, or accidental injury to prosthetic appliances, arising out of and in the course of employment requiring medical services or resulting in disability or death.). The Supreme Court reversed our opinion in Brown , but that is not the reason why we conclude the board was correct here.
Although, as claimant contends, she need not establish a condition in order to obtain compensation, claimants symptoms cannot be segregated from the condition that caused them. When, as here, the medical evidence identifies a condition causing the claimants symptoms and establishes that the condition developed gradually over time, the claimant has not experienced an injury, and the claim must be analyzed as an occupational disease. Luton v. Willamette Valley Rehabilitation Center , 272 Or.App. 487, 490, 356 P.3d 150 (2015) (Whether a claim is most appropriately analyzed as one for an occupational disease or an injury turns on whether the condition is traceable to a discrete period or developed gradually over time.); Smirnoff v. SAIF , 188 Or.App. 438, 449, 72 P.3d 118 (2003) (In determining whether a claim is for an injury or an occupational disease, the proper inquiry is whether the condition itself, not its symptoms, occurred gradually, rather than suddenly). The board did not err in so concluding.
Claimant is correct that she does not need to elect a particular theory of the case and can have both an occupational disease and an injury. Million v. SAIF , 45 Or.App. 1097, 1103, 610 P.2d 285, rev. den. , 289 Or. 337 (1980). But to prevail on a claim, there must be evidence in support of the claimants chosen theory. Here, the medical evidence in the record requires the conclusion that the medical services for which claimant seeks compensation are for treatment of diseases (medial epicondylitis and ulnar neuropathy ) rather than an injury. Further, substantial evidence supports the boards determination that the work incident was not the major contributing cause of the need for treatment.
Affirmed.
Under ORS 656.802, if the occupational disease is based on the worsening of a preexisting condition, the worker must prove that employment conditions were the major contributing cause of the * * * pathological worsening of the disease.