Traumatic Brain Injury Lawyer Fort Lauderdale
It is not always possible to predict someone’s long term future at the scene of an injury, or even for some time after that. The initial severity rating of a brain injury does not provide sufficient evidence necessary to try and predict the victim’s overall recovery potential. The many factors implicated in each injury make every person’s prognosis unlike the other. It takes time to evaluate and determine the full impact of a head injury. Take the help of our attorney in Fort Lauderdale to determine the full impact.
Several Explanations for Brain Injury in Fort Lauderdale
There are several explanations for this. An injured brain could be swollen or bleeding and in need of surgery. The person may be unconscious, and there may be no way to measure the degree of the injury’s impact. Some TBI side effects may not be immediately transparent, like memory or language difficulties, or shifts in personality.
Even if there is no loss of consciousness, a mild brain injury is diagnosed once the victim starts showing any loss of memory for events right before or after the injury. According to Pate Rehab, “Persons who have mild TBI usually have a good recovery, but some individuals may take weeks or even months of treatment to reach their maximum potential. About 75% of traumatic brain injuries are concussions or other forms of mild brain injury.”
Moderate TBI Injury
A moderate traumatic brain injury is when the loss of consciousness lasts anywhere from a couple of minutes to a couple hours. Typically, by that point most people need a brain CT or MRI scan, but often times the damage is not visible. Those who experience a moderate TBI are left feeling confused from a matter of days to weeks whereas their physical, cognitive, and/or behavioral factors could be impaired, lasting for months or ending up permanent. Patients normally recover well with rehabilitation or after learning how to compensate for their limitations.
When a Person Has a Severe Traumatic Brain Injury
When a person has a severe traumatic brain injury, they go through a prolonged unconscious state or coma that ends up lasting for days, weeks, or months. Symptoms of severe traumatic brain injury can consist of loss of consciousness, headaches, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, trouble with balance, dilation of one or both pupils, slurred speech, behavioral or mood changes, loss of coordination, restlessness, and agitation.
Patients with severe TBI have still the potential to recover significantly to the extent where they could go back to a life very close to what they had before the injury. However, some are stuck dealing with permanent physical, cognitive, or behavioral issues. With severe traumatic brain injury, rehabilitation is almost always necessary, if not recommended.
How Much Time a Person Needs to Spend in Brain Rehab in Fort Lauderdale?
How much time a person needs to spend in brain rehab is based on their specific injury and its effects. A typical length of time is around three months, though it may be shorter or longer, depending on the person’s condition and a rate at which they recover.
Victims may also find themselves being placed in a tricky position where they have to try to prove their injury to health care workers. These companies sometimes accuse those who have been affected of attempting to fake the injury, whether it is for attention or financial gain.
So, with this being said, what do you do when you or someone you know shows symptoms of a mild to severe brain injury? The sooner someone is diagnosed, the better shot they have to get the full recovery they need.
Traumatic brain injuries can interfere with everything and everyone in your life, whether you personally are affected or helping a loved one who is affected. It can strain relationships with family and friends, and it can seriously decrease your ability to work. It can even make it more of a challenge to socialize and develop new friendships.
Brain Injury in USA
In the United States, TBI is a silent crisis. According to Brainline, “As many as 5.3 million Americans are living with a permanent disability resulting from a brain injury. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that 2.8 million brain injuries Americans report a traumatic brain injury each year. Fifty-six thousand people die from it. Over two hundred eighty-two thousand people are hospitalized. Some of them go home only to discover they no longer have a sense of smell or taste, or that their sleeping habits have changed, or that they can’t seem to do their job anymore.”
Whether the traumatic brain injury is severe or mild, it is important to find the right personal injury lawyer who specializes in your unique case and has a concise understanding of the challenges that come with being a victim along with the complexities of a legal case focusing on TBIs. The proper amount of experience your personal injury attorney has with these types of cases creates a higher probability for yours to work out in your favor.
For Legal Help Call Brain Injury Attorney in Fort Lauderdale
At the law offices of Wolf & Pravato, you can expect to receive the help you need from our team at our office in Fort Lauderdale. Our legal team has led their clients to justice while also helping them acquire the resources towards the full recovery they are looking for. If you or a loved one has suffered from a traumatic brain injury, one of head injury attorney will offer you a free confidential consultation.
As you focus on trying to recover from your brain injury (or the recovery of someone you care about), our Fort Lauderdale brain injury attorneys can look through all of the brain medical charts, that may seem overwhelming to you, to help pinpoint what caused the brain injury as well as helping to determine whether your health care professionals took action in a timely manner to diagnose the condition.
Long-Term Symptoms of a Traumatic Brain Injury
The long-term symptoms of a traumatic brain injury can differ based on the severity of the TBI. Mild injuries generate brief alterations in consciousness or mental status. Severe TBIs, on the other hand, can result in amnesia or long periods of unconsciousness.
In general, one might expect the following symptoms of a TBI:
- Cognitive impairment
- Sensory processing
- Communication challenges
- Mental health and behavior changes
TBIs are also known to lead to an increased risk for Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and certain other brain disorders.
The Effects of Repeated, Mild TBIs
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a TBI need not be severe to create dangerous long-term complications. Repetition of TBIs can be just as problematic. If you suffer repeated, mild TBIs over a long period of time, you could experience cumulative cognitive and neurological impairments. If you suffer repeated injuries of this sort in a matter of hours, days, or weeks, the results can be catastrophic, or even fatal.
Prognosis for Severe TBIs: Changes in Consciousness
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) reports that around 50 percent of patients with severe TBI will require surgery to remove or repair ruptured blood vessels or bruised brain tissue. The severity and location of the injury, along with the general health and age of the patient will dictate any disabilities resulting from the TBI.
Among the most common injuries for severe TBI are:
- Stupor
- Unresponsive state from which the patient can briefly be aroused via a strong stimulus
- Coma, which renders the patient completely unconscious, unaware, unresponsive, and unarousable
- Vegetative state, in which the patient experiences unconsciousness and unawareness of surroundings, combined with a sleep-wake cycle and timespans of alertness
- Persistent vegetative state, whereby the patient remains in a vegetative state for longer than a month
- Brain death, an irreversible state where no activity in the brain or brainstem can be measured
Prognosis for TBI: Physical Complications
Besides the above conditions, TBI can also generate physical complications. According to Mayo Clinic, these complications can linger for weeks or even months after the traumatic event. Possible complications include the following:
- Infections in the brain, which can spread to the rest of the nervous system
- Frequent headaches
- Seizures, which can occur even years after the injury
- Blood vessel damage, which can develop into blood clots and lead to stroke
- Vertigo, a type of dizziness
- Hydrocephalus, a buildup of fluid in the brain, which causes it to swell
Prognosis for TBI: Diminished Intellectual Abilities
When cognitive skills are impaired, as they are with some TBIs, the patient will struggle with focusing and will require more time to process thoughts. The cognitive damage, which affects judgment, learning, memory, reasoning, and attention, translates to suffering problems in the following aspects of everyday life:
- Decision making
- Problem solving
- Starting or finishing tasks
- Planning
- Multitasking
- Organization
Prognosis for TBI: Communication Difficulties
Perhaps one of the most frustrating effects of TBI that patients must endure is the challenges with basic communication skills. The results of these impairments can create serious difficulties at home, with family and friends.
TBI patients might have a hard time comprehending writing or speech and maybe even speaking and writing. They can struggle to organize their thoughts and can fall behind when trying to follow conversations.
Socially, these communication problems continue to trouble the TBI patient, who might experience difficulty reading social cues and nonverbal signals, grasping changes in tones, choosing things to talk about, and starting or stopping conversations.
Some patients also struggle with speaking, as they have lost the ability to use the muscles required to form words.
Prognosis for TBI: Behavioral and Emotional Changes
The emotional changes a TBI victim experiences (mood swings, depression, anxiety, irritability) can combine with behavioral changes, like self-control problems, risk taking, and social awkwardness to further isolate the patient.
Prognosis for TBI: Sensory Problems
A broad range of sensory issues leaves the TBI patient in a constant state of discomfort and impaired abilities, compared with what they experienced before the event that caused their injury. These impairments could manifest as a difficulty in recognizing objects; managing eye-hand coordination; ringing in the ears; double vision or blind spots; tingling, painful, or itchy skin; difficulty detecting smells and dizziness often accompany these sensory problems.
Prognosis for TBI: Degenerative Brain Disease
TBI might be connected to the development of degenerative brain diseases that lead to gradual loss of brain functions, including:
- Alzheimer’s Disease, whereby the patient eventually loses the ability to think and remember
- Parkinson’s Disease, another progressive ailment that causes tremors and slower movements; and
- Dementia Pugilistica, a disease typically connected with repetitive blows to the head, as occurs in boxing.
The Ultimate Cost of TBI
When a person suffers TBI, their lives change—in the case of severe TBI, the changes can be devastating and permanent. Even in instances where surgery can alleviate the injury, such surgeries are incredibly expensive.
Given the effects reviewed here, it is easy to see how the effects of TBI would disable an individual from working, or certainly performing certain types of work that they might have done before the injury.
The pain and suffering for those who are aware of the impact is difficult to imagine, as is the emotional strain for family and loved ones who, in a sense, lose the person they once knew, and in many cases, now have to care for that person.
Common Events That Can Cause TBI
The following common events are commonly linked as a causal factor in patients with TBI:
- Falls: The most common cause of TBI, especially for older adults and young kids.
- Sports Injuries: Mostly from high-impact sports, like hockey, football, soccer, boxing, skateboarding, baseball, and lacrosse.
- Vehicle Collisions: Accidents involving cars, motorcycles, bicycles, and pedestrians.
- Explosive Blasts: Common with active-duty military, perhaps resulting from a pressure wave traveling through the brain and disrupting its functioning; also, combat injuries involving shrapnel, falls, and penetrating wounds.
- Violence: Child abuse, domestic violence, assaults, shaken baby syndrome, and even gunshot wounds.
Take Help Of Our Brain Injury Lawyer Fort Lauderdale
If you or a loved one suffered TBI, chances are you can receive compensation for your injury and all the economic, physical, and emotional damages that have come along with it.
The Law Offices of Wolf & Pravato can represent you and make sure you know your legal options. Our attorneys are honest, responsive, and caring. One of our brain injury lawyers in Fort Lauderdale will treat you like family. Call 954-633-8270 for a free case review with a TBI lawyer.
FAQs of Brain Injury Lawyer
After a traumatic brain injury, you may be entitled to compensation for a number of expenses. These expenses can include medical costs, such as surgeries and therapy, as well as compensation for missed work, especially if the effects of your brain injury are expected to be permanent. In some cases, you may be able to file a claim for physical and emotional pain and suffering you experienced as a result of the accident that led to your brain injury.
Family members who lose loved ones after an accident may be able to file wrongful death claims or lawsuits. Your ability to file one of these may depend on a few factors, such as your relationship to the decedent, the type of accident your loved one was in, and if someone was negligent and caused your loved one’s injuries and other damages.
A brain injury lawyer may be able to help you understand if you are in a position to file an insurance claim or lawsuit, as well as explain your legal rights. They can also aid you in filing your claim and can work for compensation on your behalf.
1. What Is a Brain Injury?
An incident that leads to a blow to the head can result in a brain injury, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Brain injuries range from mild to moderate or severe. According to MedlinePlus, an example of a common, mild brain injury is a concussion. Even though many people recover, it can grow into a more serious issue.
2. How Can a Traumatic Brain Injury Attorney Help in Fort Lauderdale?
A Brain Injury attorney can help you file your case and will provide a number of benefits along the way. They can collect the necessary evidence for your claim, handle all communication with relevant parties, and work to keep you informed and up-to-date throughout the process.
They understand personal injury law and will do everything they can to show that the other party was negligent and that their lack of care led to your injuries. Finally, they can explain your legal rights, the laws which may affect your claim and help you understand the potential value for your claim if you are awarded compensation.
3. What Are the Causes of Brain Injuries?
The most common cause of traumatic brain injuries is falls, which largely affect younger children and older adults.
MedlinePlus notes that other causes of traumatic brain injuries for both children and adults include:
- Being hit by or against something
- Car accidents
- Self-harm
- Child abuse
- Injuries from sports
- Injuries from explosions
- Being shot by a bullet
- Being hit by a weapon, like a hammer
4. What Complications May Arise in a Traumatic Brain Injury?
Complications from a traumatic brain injury include long-term effects to certain functions within your brain and body. These could include effects on thinking, such as memory and reasoning ability, changes to balance, and even vision.
Severe TBIs may impact languages, such as your ability to express yourself or communicate with others, as well as emotions, leading to feelings of depression, anxiety, or other mental health symptoms.
5. How Do I Obtain Compensation for My Brain Injury?
Getting compensation for a brain injury in Fort Lauderdale requires filing a personal injury claim or lawsuit. However, whether you will be awarded compensation may depend on whether the person who caused the accident that led to your injury can be held liable.
To be held liable, the person must have acted negligently. A brain injury attorney can help you prove negligence and determine liability in Fort Lauderdale.
Contact the Law Offices of Wolf & Pravato for Help After a Traumatic Brain Injury
If you were in a car accident or another incident that resulted in a brain injury, filing a claim or lawsuit may help you pay for costly traumatic brain injury treatment and make up for wages you missed while recovering.
It is important to act quickly to file a lawsuit. Florida Statutes § 95.11 dictates that you have four years to file for personal injury. However, for wrongful death, the same statute affirms that you have two years to bring a lawsuit on your late loved one’s behalf. Make sure you bring your lawsuit against the at-fault party in a timely manner. Otherwise, you may not be able to recover any damages related to you or your loved one’s brain injury.
If you suffered a brain injury, consider working with a brain injury lawyer Fort Lauderdale at the Law Offices of Wolf & Pravato. Contact us at (954) 633-8270 now to learn more about taking legal action. Our law firm works on a contingency-fee-basis, so you will not owe us anything upfront or out of pocket unless you win compensation.
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