Traumatic brain injuries occur when a sudden impact causes the brain to move around inside the skull. Traumatic brain injuries can be either open head injuries or closed head injuries.
A traumatic brain injury may also occur when a sharp object punctures the skull and damages brain tissue. Some brain injuries might seem relatively mild, such as concussions—doctors may even call them “mild,” but that’s a misnomer, since they can have surprisingly serious and lasting effects.
Moderate to severe brain injuries regularly present serious effects for months, years, or permanently. The brain can hemorrhage as a result of brain injuries. Brain tissue can also bruise and cause neurological damage. If the brain tissue tears during a traumatic brain injury, the injured victim may require long-term rehabilitation or permanent hospice care.
Suffering a traumatic brain injury can alter the course of a victim’s life forever. These injuries often occur suddenly and unexpectedly. Seeking medical care immediately after an accident involving a brain injury will help reduce any long-term complications caused by the injury. Living with a brain injury requires patience, determination, and strength.
Contact a Hamilton brain injury lawyer to help you hold the party responsible for your injuries liable. Your loved one also may have suffered a traumatic brain injury due to the negligent or reckless behavior of another party. If this is the case, you need to take action now to begin asserting your legal claims and seeking monetary compensation for your injuries.
Do not wait to contact Lalande Personal Injury Lawyers for the help you need today.
A competent lawyer at Lalande Personal Injury Lawyers can help you gather the evidence you need to prove your legal claims. Our brain injury lawyers can subpoena records and other forms of data that can be used as evidence to support your case.
A lawyer can also negotiate with the insurance companies and prevent the insurance companies from forcing you to accept a low settlement amount. A brain injury lawyer can also determine whom to pursue for your injuries and how you can hold them accountable under the law.
Traumatic brain injuries can occur on a football field, a freeway, or any other place where it is possible for an individual to suffer serious bodily injury.
Some of the most frequent causes of traumatic brain injuries are as follows:
A negligent or reckless motorist can strike a cyclist and cause the cyclist to suffer a traumatic brain injury. A slippery staircase at an apartment complex can cause an individual to slip and suffer a severe head laceration.
Traumatic brain injuries may affect an injured victim’s cognition for decades. While you recover and heal, you need to make sure that you understand your legal rights. You can often recover a financial award for the costs associated with treating a traumatic brain injury.
Seeking medical attention is the first thing that should occur after someone suffers a traumatic brain injury. Proving that your brain injury is related to the accident caused by the negligent party is essential for your case. Medical treatment should begin immediately after receiving a diagnosis from a physician.
A doctor may diagnose a brain injury using several methods. Your physician may use one or all of the following procedures: brain imaging testing, interviewing the patient, and the Glasgow coma scale.
Brain imaging is used in medical research and neurocognitive analysis. Two primary tools a doctor can use to diagnose a traumatic brain injury are an MRI and a CT scan. MRI is an acronym for magnetic resonance imaging. CT is an acronym for computed tomography.
Doctors use these tests along with x-rays to examine the physical condition of the brain. Medical professionals typically search for bleeding, swelling, or bruising of the brain. An MRI photographs the brain, and physicians use these images to assess the recovery stages that occur after a traumatic brain injury.
A physician may also interview a patient who suffered a traumatic brain injury. As the doctor questions the patient, the doctor will test the patient’s speech, memory, and cognitive skills. This is often one of the initial methods a physician will use to determine the condition of a patient who suffered a mild traumatic brain injury.
The Glasgow coma scale is a more complex test of a patient’s physical and mental condition that involves having the patient move their limbs, follow specific instructions, and speak. A doctor may test a patient’s hand-eye coordination or ask the patient to follow the doctor’s finger with his or her eyes.
After performing a series of tests, a physician may diagnose a traumatic brain injury as a concussion. The treatment plan for a concussion will be different if the doctor diagnoses a traumatic brain injury as a hematoma or a skull fracture.
Hiring a traumatic brain injury lawyer will help you collect the medical records and reports you need to help support your case.
Traumatic brain injuries affect nearly every aspect of an injured victim’s life. The brain is important for the body’s vital functions as well as how a victim thinks and feels about his or her environment and interpersonal relationships.
These are some of the immediate effects of a traumatic brain injury:
Injured victims who suffer traumatic brain injuries may experience a coma. This may develop into a vegetative state. Consciousness disorders are one of the most apparent and immediate effects of traumatic brain injuries.
Traumatic brain injuries can cause patients to experience higher rates of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. Injured victims may also experience higher rates of facial paralysis and a loss of sensation in the head, face, and neck.
Brain injury victims may also experience changes in hormone levels. These alterations in hormone levels may cause hypothyroidism. Post-traumatic epilepsy involves seizures an injured victim suffers after a traumatic brain injury. It is possible for seizures to appear months and years after the initial traumatic brain injury.
Even mild concussions produce serious side effects such as memory loss, insomnia, depression, and migraines. If a victim suffers a serious traumatic brain injury and becomes severely disabled, the victim may suffer from deep vein thrombosis because they cannot move their body.
If a traumatic brain injury victim experiences a skull fracture, it is possible for the brain itself to become infected. These infections may spread to other organ systems throughout the body.
Lastly, fever, pneumonia, and low blood pressure are all possible complications caused by a traumatic brain injury. Injured victims may need long-term medical care or hospice care, depending on the severity of the injury and its lingering effects.
A “mild” traumatic brain injury is usually accompanied by only a brief loss of consciousness. Some victims of mild traumatic brain injuries never lose consciousness. The negative effects of a mild traumatic brain injury may not appear to a layperson, but many injured victims experience symptoms that interfere with the injured victim’s life for longer than expected.
Some injured victims receive a blow to the head but never lose consciousness. Hospital physicians and nurses may send these individuals home. If the injured victim does not seek treatment, he or she may not understand the causes of the symptoms that can arise months after suffering a mild traumatic brain injury.
Some individuals never seek medical treatment for their mild traumatic brain injury. If these injured victims experience symptoms at a later date, they may attribute the symptoms to some other cause. This is why it is so important to seek medical treatment immediately after suffering any type of traumatic brain injury.
Mild traumatic brain injuries may cause these effects:
Many amateur and professional athletes experience mild traumatic brain injuries. These injury victims may not realize that they are suffering from brain injuries because their symptoms may be unnoticeable to them. Repeated mild traumatic brain injuries can cause serious long-term medical issues and can contribute to severe depression, anxiety, and memory issues.
Traumatic brain injuries produce unpredictable effects, and ongoing care may be necessary to keep an injured victim stable and functional. Many traumatic brain injuries cause permanent damage to the brain, and these patients need extensive rehabilitation therapy to cope with the cognitive, emotional, and physical changes caused by their traumatic brain injury.
Many injured victims who suffer severe traumatic brain injuries may need to relearn how to do everything from walking, speaking, eating, and identifying familiar people and places. Injured victims who suffer permanent disability may need to learn how to accept that they will never walk again or function as they did before their traumatic brain injury.
Injured victims often need to participate in physical rehabilitation. This form of therapy may begin in the hospital and continue throughout the rest of their lives. Physical therapy may also last only a short period of time when an injured victim suffers a mild traumatic brain injury.
In addition to physical therapy, many injured victims need to participate in cognitive therapy and speech therapy. Individuals who suffer traumatic brain injuries often cannot plan, reason, or focus. These patients need help to relearn these skills, and they must practice these skills in a consistent manner.
Speech therapy enables patients to relearn how to organize their thoughts, communicate, and listen to others. Traumatic brain injuries can damage the areas of the brain that process language. Many patients need to practice using words and expressions for a long time before they can communicate in a manner that is comprehensible to others.
A traumatic brain injury can prohibit an injured victim from working in a physically demanding profession. Injured victims may lack the mobility they need to return to their jobs before they recover.
Many injured victims suffer from neurological symptoms caused by a traumatic brain injury. These individuals often cannot control their limbs, balance, or walk in a precise manner. It may be almost impossible for some victims to return to the jobs they held before suffering from a traumatic brain injury.
Individuals suffering from traumatic brain injuries may also lack the mental capacity they possessed before the injury. Synthesizing data, drafting reports, and communicating research may not be possible for these patients due to the symptoms caused by a traumatic brain injury.
Tort law governs personal injury lawsuits and negligence. When you ask who is responsible for your brain injury, you want to ask who had a duty to exercise reasonable care under some specific set of circumstances. Drivers on a freeway have a duty to exercise reasonable care as they operate motor vehicles.
The responsible party who caused your traumatic brain injury likely had a duty to exercise reasonable care but then breached that duty by acting in a negligent or reckless manner, and this breach caused your traumatic brain injury.
A reckless driver or a negligent property owner may be liable for your injuries. You need to hire a competent and experienced lawyer to help you understand who may be liable for your injuries. If an individual was acting within the scope of their employment during an accident, you may seek financial compensation from the individual’s employer.
If you suffered injuries while you were at work, your employer may be liable for your injuries. A skilled personal injury lawyer can help you understand how the facts of your case interact with the law. You can then proceed to file your legal claims and have an experienced lawyer negotiate with the insurance companies on your behalf.
Reach out to Lalande Personal Injury Lawyers and schedule a free consultation, during which we can discuss the facts of your case. Our skilled and experienced lawyers can advise you on the best course to take as you begin thinking about filing suit and recovering the financial compensation that will make you whole.
You do not have to allow yourself or your loved one to suffer alone with the detrimental effects of a traumatic brain injury. Do not let insurance companies prevent you from seeking the financial award that will help you pay medical bills. You can work toward holding the responsible party liable. Call our team today at (905) 333-8888 or send us a message through our contact form and learn more about how you can defend your legal rights.
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