Charleston Brain Injury Lawyers

How Do Brain Injuries Happen?

Traumatic brain injuries can result from a wide variety of circumstances, including assault and battery, boating and jet ski accidents, car accidents, day care abuse, premises liability, construction accidents, and truck accidents. Brain injuries often occur as the result of a blow or jolt to the head, which are not infrequent in these types of serious accidents.

Traumatic brain injuries can have a devastating impact on your life, affecting your family, personal relationships, and ability to earn a living. It is important to retain counsel who are experienced with the long-term effects of traumatic brain injuries to maximize value in traumatic brain injury cases.

On This Page:

• Traumatic Brain Injury Classification
• Symptoms of a Traumatic Brain Injury
• Effects of Traumatic Brain Injuries
• Long-Term Effects of Traumatic Brain Injuries
• Treatment of Traumatic Brain Injury

Traumatic Brain Injury Classification

Traumatic brain injuries are typically classified as either mild, moderate, or severe through the use of the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS). The Glasgow Coma Scale is divided into three components: Eye opening, verbal response and motor responses. These are usually summed to produce a total score.

A Glasgow Coma Scale score of 13-15 is defined as mild, 9-12 as moderate, and 3-8 as severe. Additional relevant information to classifying a traumatic brain injury are the length of post-traumatic amnesia and results of neuroimaging.

What are the Symptoms of a Traumatic Brain Injury?

Symptoms of a severe traumatic brain injury are more wide-ranging and can include a variety of cognitive, speech and language, sensory, perceptual, physical, and emotional deficits. Symptoms of a mild traumatic brain injury can include:

• Loss of consciousness
• Headaches
• Fatigue
• Memory loss
• Poor concentration
• Irritability
• Depression

Effects of Traumatic Brain Injuries

Traumatic brain injuries can result in a wide variety of physical, emotional, and neurocognitive effects.

• Physical effects can include amnesia, headaches, limited function of arms or legs, abnormal speech or language, dizziness, blurry vision, sensitivity to light, nausea, vomiting, and ringing in the ears.
• Emotional effects can include increased irritability, agitation, mood swings, anger, depression, and anxiety.
• Neurocognitive effects can include executive functioning deficits, such as decreased memory, attention, reasoning, and problem-solving abilities.

Although the symptoms vary significantly from person to person, even mild brain injuries can have serious and lasting consequences.

Long-Term Effects of Traumatic Brain Injuries

The long-term effects of a traumatic brain injury vary depending on the severity of the brain injury, and from individual to individual. Some individuals recover entirely, while others experience persistent physical, emotional, and neurocognitive symptoms.

Obtaining early and appropriate care is crucial in the treatment of traumatic brain injuries and the prospects for recovery. Equally important is retaining experienced counsel who can assist you in determining the nature and scope of permanent disability, which is essential to obtaining adequate compensation.

Treatment of Traumatic Brain Injury

Treatment of traumatic brain injury varies depending on the severity of the brain injury. Once the patient is medically stabilized in the emergency department and discharged, the focus shifts to determining the nature and scope of symptoms and developing a plan to restore the lost functional abilities and enhance functional independence.

The rehabilitation team can include

• Therapists specializing in physical, speech, and occupational rehabilitation
• Physicians specializing in physical medicine and rehabilitation
• Neurologists
• Neuropsychiatrists

These medical professionals will assist the patient in returning to their pre-accident baseline, to the extent possible, and in developing coping skills and strategies to deal with permanent deficits.

Call for a Free Consultation

It is important to retain counsel who are experienced in evaluating and litigating traumatic brain injury cases to maximize the value of your case.

Traumatic brain injury cases are complex medical cases that often require the use of expert witnesses to opine on the permanent injury and resulting monetary damages, so it is important to choose your counsel wisely.