It’s hard to explain an injury when there is no visible evidence. Despite growing awareness of concussions and mental health issues stemming from concussions, these injuries are downplayed and minimized. People can easily think you are fine.
Concussions occur when the soft tissue of the brain, cushioned by spinal fluid, is jolted or moved around in your head. A traumatic brain injury, or TBI, can cause bruising, damage to the blood vessels, and injury to the nerves. The affect of this injury on a person and their family can be devastating. TBI may affect personality, memory, and may impact family life, job, and social interactions. Symptoms may not appear until weeks after the injury. Brain injuries do not heal like other injuries and require intensive rehabilitative treatments and therapies.
Recently, a client who had suffered a mild concussion after he was jarred while riding his bicycle (without hitting his head), was later rear-ended in a car accident, and again, not actually hitting his head. The car accident caused him to be jolted back and forth resulting in two concussions in brief succession.
He later experienced serious symptoms such as headaches, dizziness, fatigue, poor balance, amnesia, mental confusion, sleep disturbances, nausea, irritability, mild depression, ringing in the ears, and sensitivity to light. He mistakenly believed that after he was jostled by the car accident, he was fine.
His symptoms continued for a month after the bike incident and then reemerged worse than before. The second time he began suffering from serious depression and ended up in a hospital for his own safety. Even without a direct impact to the head, or any visible marks, a closed head injury and concussion can be life changing or even fatal.
There are three types of concussions:
Most traumatic brain injury patients will require rehabilitation after being released from the hospital. In rehabilitation, therapists work daily with patients to help them regain their pre-injury lives by focusing on areas such as: chronic pain, impaired cognition, impaired physical mobility, impaired verbal communication and comprehension, health maintenance, and nutrition.
If you have a head injury or TBI and are experiencing a concussion, you should do the following things:
It is also important to consult an attorney who appreciates the seriousness of these injuries and works with medical professionals who can help. In addition, depression is often a result of a head injury. Even though football players and boxers’ stories are in the media, it is still difficult for people to appreciate that there is a direct cause between a closed head injury, even without a hematoma, and severe debilitating depression.
ThePhillyLawyers specializes in concussion cases and closed head injuries. We work with neurologists, neuropsychologists, and therapists to help our clients recover, get back to their pre-concussion functioning, and return to a normal life. We have successfully litigated and settled numerous closed head injury and concussion cases resulting from car accidents, bicycle accidents, pedestrians being struck, and work-related head injuries.
