What Are the Long-term Effects of a Brain Injury?

The most complex system in your body is the brain. It controls the rest of your body by sending messages from your brain to your limbs. When there is damage to your brain, it results in severe, life-altering consequences. Your life might never be the same, and your losses can be overwhelming. You need to call a traumatic brain injury lawyer after someone else’s negligence caused your traumatic brain injury.

What is a traumatic brain injury?

A traumatic brain injury happens from a jolt or blows to the head. The brain stays in one place when the head experiences sudden deceleration or acceleration, and the ultimate result is the brain bouncing against the skull.

While there are different medical classifications for the extent of the injury, all traumatic brain injuries are serious.

Some types of these injuries include:

• Contusion: When there is bruising or bleeding on the brain. Surgery is a standard treatment option.
• Coup-contrecoup: When both sides of the brain experience bruising.
• Penetrative: When the skull breaks due to a foreign object and injures the brain.
• Diffuse axonal: Nerve fibers shear throughout the brain.

Treatment will vary depending on the injury and severity, but treatments can be extensive and invasive. Many victims will require hospitalization and rehabilitation but still do not fully recover from a TBI.

What causes traumatic brain injuries?

It does not take anything too out of the ordinary to result in a TBI. Any incident that involves blunt force to the head can result in a traumatic brain injury.

Incidents can include:

• Car accidents
• Bicycle accident
• Truck accidents
• Slip and fall accidents
• Pedestrian accidents
• Defective product injuries
• Nursing home abuse
• Violence

While these are the most common TBI causes, there are many others. You can sustain a brain injury from any number of incidents. When you are in an accident of any kind, you must get a medical examination to determine whether you have a head injury. You and your family must also monitor and look for potential traumatic brain injury symptoms.

You will need to seek emergency medical care for any signs or symptoms. Diagnosing can be challenging, so these injuries are commonly known as invisible. These injuries can get worse when there is a delay in diagnosis. Do not delay in getting an exam, and document all of your symptoms as soon as you see them.

Common effects of a TBI

A traumatic brain injury might never fully resolve, and victims are left to face the repercussions for the rest of their lives.

There are different physical effects that victims might experience, including:

• Persistent headaches
• Vomiting and nausea
• Speech problems and slurring
• Difficulty sleeping
• Drowsiness or fatigue
• Convulsions or seizures
• Incessant nausea or vomiting
• Loss of coordination or balance
• Inability to wake up from sleep
• Pupil dilation in one or both eyes

TBIs can also have cognitive effects, such as:

• Difficulty with information processing
• Decreased reading comprehension
• Communication problems
• Memory lapses

Some TBI victims suffer mental or behavioral challenges:

• Changes in personality
• Lack of impulse control
• Anger management issues
• Depression or anxiety

Due to these physical, cognitive, and behavioral impairments, TBIs have many long-term consequences that change everything for sufferers.

Some of the long-term effects are:

• Inability to live alone or the need for a caregiver
• Ongoing medical treatment and rehabilitation
• Chronic headaches
• Inability to work and earn a living
• Challenges in forming and keeping interpersonal relationships.

All of these significantly alter a person’s life. Without the ability to earn a living, victims might depend on family for financial assistance. Unable to live independently means that a person might require a caregiver or to live with family.

Everything a TBI victim does might depend on someone else. In less dramatic situations, a TBI victim might have to forgo educational or professional goals and accept a much different life path than they were on pre-injury. There will also be many medical appointments and therapies requiring transportation and time.

The ways your life can change physically, emotionally, and mentally after a TBI are endless, and holding liable parties responsible for their role in your injury is essential.

The legal repercussions of a traumatic brain injury

All TBIs, regardless of classification, are severe and deserve to be treated as such. When the injury results from another person’s careless or wrongful actions, that party must be legally and financially responsible. Garnering the right compensation for these cases is complex, and you need a lawyer with the experience to fight for the compensation and justice you deserve.

The other party who was the cause of your injury is living their life without facing any repressions while you are adapting to a new way of life. Many parties might be liable for your injury, depending on the circumstances of your injury. Liability will be critical to determining who to hold accountable for your damages and losses.

A few examples include:

• A driver who violated a traffic law and caused an accident
• A property owner who had a hazardous condition that led to your injury
• A person who assaults or injuries you in a nursing home setting
• A referee, coach, or sports league when they do not take reasonable actions and steps to protect athletes
• A truck driver who causes a semi-truck crash

Through an investigation, your traumatic brain injury lawyer will determine who the liable party for your injuries is and how to hold them accountable for your injuries and lifelong pain.

Recovering monetary compensation for your injury

A TBI’s implications for the rest of a person’s life are unimaginable, and no amount of money can ever give you your life back. Even so, you should not need to pay all of these expenses. When you cannot work, you cannot buy groceries or pay rent. You will also have medical expenses you need to cover.

Whoever was the culprit of the accident that led to your injury must pay for these expenses. However, since there is a lot of medical care you will need to undergo, you do not have time to focus on the legal repercussions, but a local traumatic brain injury lawyer does.

Some of the compensation a lawyer can recover for your injury is:

• Pain and suffering
• Ongoing medical expenses
• Emergency medical care
• Current medical care
• Home and vehicle modifications
• Lost wages and future lost earning potential

Most TBI cases will involve these damage awards but not all. You need to address the specifics of your claim with your local brain injury attorney to determine what compensation you deserve.

How long do these cases take to settle?

No personal injury lawsuit has a specific time in which it will settle. Many factors affect these claims. Depending on your injuries, treatment, and losses, the case can go on for a long time. When the other party is unwilling to take responsibility for their actions or offer a fair settlement, that can delay a claim.

Many legal factors are out of your control, but staying patient during the process is essential. Whether the case settles in pre-litigation or litigation will also prolong the claim length.

Some of the most common delays result from:

• Parties involved in the claim, such as the lawyers and insurance companies
• Evidence collection and medical evaluations
• Liability disputes
• Disputes over how much compensation is necessary
• Scheduling conflicts

The sooner you contact a lawyer, the sooner they can begin to build your case. Even if your traumatic brain injury lawyer is ready to move forward with your claim, there can still be delays from the opposing party. There are many tactics other parties will use to delay or lower claims, but when you have a solid attorney on your team, they can work to prevent or challenge these tactics.

The only things you need to control are having the right attorney and ensuring you get to all of your doctor’s visits. Let your TBI lawyer handle the rest. Do not fret about the out-of-pocket costs of hiring a lawyer because personal injury attorneys do not collect fees unless they settle a claim successfully.

How can you help your claim?

When you suffer head trauma, even if you do not believe you have a TBI, you must stay alert to the possibility. You can experience persistent symptoms like insomnia, headaches, irritability, depression, anxiety, brain fog, and sensitivity to light and sound. TBI victims often make the mistake of thinking that these symptoms are due to the everyday stresses of life, but they can be a sign of something much worse.

You can help your claim by getting a medical evaluation and diagnosis, attending all doctor appointments, and relaying every symptom. While the primary concern for visiting the doctor is to feel better, it also helps create a medical paper trail of your injury and recovery process. This way, the opposing insurance company cannot say that you did not get adequate care or there was a delay in care.

You should also keep track of your symptoms by starting a pain journal. Not only will the pain journal help keep track of how you feel, but your lawyer can use it as evidence of your condition. You should note the symptoms and how the injury affects your life. If you cannot use the bathroom alone, you must write this in your journal. Even being unable to bend and pick something off the floor should be in your journal as a significant disruption in your life.

When there are severe injuries, the insurance company will move quickly to offer an initial settlement, which is not in your best interests to accept. They offer these settlements to take advantage of your pain and willingness to settle quickly. They know you are anxious to obtain financial recovery, but these offers usually do not cover all your injury claim costs.

You can get a more significant settlement if you stay patient and weigh your options. Your attorney will inform you of any offer the insurance company gives, but it will be up to you to accept it or not. An experienced attorney will help you make an informed decision regarding any settlement offers, and you should never accept an offer without consulting a lawyer.

The insurance adjuster will pretend to be on your side and care about your condition, but this is not true. Insurance companies aim to increase profits by taking advantage of injury victims. They cannot take advantage of you if you have the proper legal representation from the start of the claim process.

Contact a traumatic brain injury lawyer

The best way to help your claim is to immediately contact a traumatic brain injury lawyer near you. Treating a traumatic brain injury costs between $85,000 and $3 million. A traumatic brain injury will affect victims differently. While there is a general sense of how much these injuries cost, that doesn’t mean your case will fall into an expected range.

The more severe and debilitating the injury is, the higher the cost. Victims do not have the finances to cover these expenses, and their health insurance benefits will run out quickly. The financial cost is only one element in addition to long-term emotional, psychical, and psychological effects. You could suffer lifelong consequences.

Having the right TBI attorney on your side is vital to ensure you get the maximum compensation for your claim. The wrong attorney can result in a lower claim and inadequate support for the future. Do not leave your future in the hands of just anyone. You need a lawyer who helps clients with TBIs and has previously handled these cases. Ensure your TBI lawyer has a proven track record before moving forward.

Call a local traumatic brain injury lawyer to file a claim and get the necessary care. Consultations are free, so starting the process today gives you nothing to lose and everything to gain.

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