WE’LL COME TO YOU
Our attorney will travel to your home, or hospital, at your convenience and request.
Though you may have heard of or even suffered from concussions, many people do not associate this increasingly common injury with a traumatic brain injury. A concussion even a so-called “mild concussion” is, in fact, a traumatic brain injury. You could sustain more long-term damage than you might think. Usually, people suffer concussions due to a blow to the head. You might fall, stumble into a wall, get hit in the head while playing sports, or hit your head in a car accident.
When the soft tissue in the brain hits the skull, the impact damages nerves and blood vessels, causing the brain to malfunction.
Some of the common causes of concussions include:
Additionally, if this is not your first concussion, it is easier to suffer a concussion the next time you hit your head. If the impact that causes the concussion bleeds too much, it could be fatal. Thus, anyone suffering a concussion needs someone to watch them for hours after the injury.
Even what might be diagnosed as a mild concussion could cause additional complications, including headaches up to a week after the initial injury, vertigo that could last several months, and thinking difficulties that last over three weeks.
Additionally, any head injury could lead to complications later in life, such as chronic traumatic encephalopathy. This is a newer disease that doctors do not know much about. They can guess that you have it based on symptoms but can only diagnose it during an autopsy.
The biggest problem with diagnosing a concussion is that doctors cannot see a concussion. In some cases, accident victims might not exhibit signs of a concussion for days or weeks after the accident. Some symptoms could last for mere seconds, while others could last for weeks or even months or longer.
If you suspect you might have a concussion, you should go to the emergency room immediately. The signs of a concussion might include one or more of the following:
Sometimes, even mild concussions could lead to serious symptoms, such as a blood clot forming in the brain.
If you exhibit any of the following symptoms, you should see go to the emergency room immediately:
Danger signs in children include those listed above, plus not eating or nursing and becoming inconsolable.
Because doctors and medical professionals cannot see concussions, they must rely on the symptoms you exhibit. You should always tell your doctor all of the symptoms you have, even if they seem minor. Additionally, medical professionals can use testing to help diagnose a concussion.
When you first go into the hospital, doctors will most likely take a neurological history, including checking your hearing, vision, balance, coordination, strength, sensation, and reflexes. The medical professional might also as you some questions to test your cognitive function, including recalling information, concentration, and memory.
If a doctor believes you might have suffered a concussion, they might take some imaging tests, including a CT scan or a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) test. The doctor could also keep you overnight or require that someone at home observe you for at least 24 hours, including waking you up frequently to make sure you can wake up normally.
Usually, general symptoms may dissipate in two to three weeks. However, if some or all symptoms do not resolve, or if new symptoms appear, you should go to the hospital as soon as possible. Be sure to tell medical professionals that you suffered a mild concussion, but symptoms have not disappeared or new symptoms appeared, whichever the case.
One of the issues with suffering repeated concussions from accidents or sports injuries is that studies have shown that people could develop chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). This rare brain degeneration disease does not usually show up immediately after someone suffers from one or more concussions. Nor is it well understood. Researchers still have not determined how many repeated head traumas a person needs to suffer before developing CTE.
Doctors can only diagnose CTE during an autopsy in most cases. However, in some cases where people have had high-risk exposures, doctors can make a diagnosis when the person is alive.
While doctors cannot make a positive diagnosis in life, those that have been found to have CTE have exhibited certain symptoms during life, including:
Researchers believe that some symptoms, such as behavioral and mental health symptoms develop earlier possibly in the patient’s 20s and 30s in one form of CTE. In a second form of the disease, researchers have found that those at around 60 years of age suffer from thinking and memory issues that could turn into dementia.
During autopsies, researchers found a buildup around the blood vessels in the brain. The protein looks different than the tau protein buildup seen in people with other forms of dementia. In most cases, this is the only way to tell if a person had CTE. However, doctors can make a probable diagnosis by looking at the signs and symptoms of those with probably CTE.
If you suffered a concussion, even a mild concussion, always let your accident attorney know how many concussions you had in your life. While it is difficult to determine if anyone will develop CTE later in life, if there is a good chance of it, the attorney will fight to get you the compensation you deserve.
After an incident or accident that caused a concussion, you could recover compensatory damages in the form of economic damages and non-economic damages.
Sometimes referred to as special damages, economic damages have a monetary value. The court orders the defendant to pay them in an attempt to make you whole again. While the money cannot remove injuries or make you feel better, it does remove the stress of not being able to work and caring for your family.
Economic damages include:
You could recover compensation for medical expenses from the time you incurred the injuries in the accident through the time you received a settlement or trial award. You could also recover compensation for future disabilities if your doctor believes the injuries you sustained in the accident will cause long-term or permanent disabilities
Medical expenses include doctors’ appointments, surgeries, follow-up appointments, prescriptions, ambulatory aids, physical therapy, occupational therapy, cognitive therapy, and psychological therapy. They could also include the installation of hand controls in your vehicle, grab bars in your showers, wheelchair ramps, and widened doorways in your house.
After an accident that caused a concussion and other injuries, you might not be able to work for a few days or even a few months. You could recover lost wages for the time you cannot work. Additionally, if doctors believe that your injuries will result in long-term or permanent disabilities, you could also recover the future loss of earning capacity.
If you had property that an accident damaged, the defendant is liable for replacing or repairing it. Personal property might include your vehicle and anything of value in it, such as cell phones, computers, and clothing.
Sometimes referred to as general damages, non-economic damages do not have a monetary value. No one can put a price on the losses you suffer in an accident. However, the court orders a defendant to pay non-economic damages to pay you for the losses that the defendant caused. Non-economic damages are generally awarded to those who have injuries that doctors expect to turn into long-term or permanent disabilities or those who lost a loved one due to an accident.
Even if your loved one lives for a short time after the accident, you could recover non-economic damages in a wrongful death action. For example, your loved one suffered injuries, including a concussion, in an accident but seemed fine for a couple of months after they recovered. Suddenly, your loved one developed persistent headaches and died.
If doctors find that an aneurism caused the headaches (most likely caused by the concussion), you could recover non-economic damages, which include:
If you suffered injuries, including a mild concussion, in an accident, or lost a loved one in an accident or incident, contact a brain injury accident injury attorney for a free case evaluation.
(805) 500-8335 [email protected]
2530 Professional Parkway, Suite A, Santa Maria, California, 93455
(805) 324-6020 [email protected]
127 El Paseo, Santa Barbara, California, 93101
(805) 242-4593 [email protected]
297 Santa Rosa Street, San Luis Obispo, California, 93405
(661) 244-9712 [email protected]
5500 Ming Avenue, Suite 390, Bakersfield, California, 93309
(562) 800-0529 [email protected]
853 Atlantic Avenue, Suite #201, Long Beach, California, 90813