One of the potential injuries from an accident is a traumatic brain injury. Traumatic brain injuries fall on a spectrum; mild ones can cause temporary symptoms while more serious cases can cause lifelong complications. However, most of the long-term effects of a traumatic brain injury can remain invisible to the average person. Continue reading to learn more about the unseen damages of traumatic brain injury.
The most severe complications of a moderate to severe brain injury are changes in the person’s state of consciousness. These changes include being in a coma, vegetative state, minimally conscious state, or brain death.
Physical complications can occur right after the traumatic brain injury or throughout the rest of your life. The extent of the complications depends on the severity of the brain injury. A few examples of physical complications are seizures, build-up of fluid in the brain, infections, blood vessel damage, headaches, vertigo, and cranial nerve damage.
In addition to the physical complications, there are intellectual, communication, behavioral, emotional, and sensory changes that can happen to a person who has survived a traumatic brain injury.
The trauma your brain has experienced can damage your cognitive abilities, such as your memory, ability to learn, rationalize, judge, and concentrate. You can also struggle with problem-solving, multi-tasking, organizing, planning, making decisions, and completing tasks. In many cases, a person suffering from a brain injury will report “brain fog” or an inability to organize their thoughts.
A person can also have challenges communicating after a traumatic brain injury, including difficulty understanding writing and speech, speaking, writing, and following conversations. This can take a massive toll on your social skills by struggling to understand nonverbal cues, starting or stopping conversations, and noticing changes in pitch, tone, and emphasis.
After a traumatic brain injury, the person’s behavior can be affected by difficulty managing self-control, lack of awareness, struggling in social situations, and emotional outbursts.
Emotionally there can be many changes after a traumatic brain injury including mood swings, depression, anxiety, frustration, anger, lack of empathy, and insomnia.
Sensory issues can also arise after a traumatic brain injury such as damaged hand-eye coordination, impaired taste & smell, trouble balancing, ringing in the ears, blind spots, double vision, and skin irritation.
All of these complications and long-lasting effects can stand in the way of returning to your life before the traumatic brain injury. You could be out of work for months, years, or potentially the rest of your life. You could struggle with having to adapt to challenges in your new life both physically and emotionally. In addition, you could require physical therapy, occupational therapy, cognitive therapy, and mental health therapy to cope with your traumatic brain injury. In addition to these changes, you may have also ended up with costly medical bills for the care you needed to heal from your injury and face the prospect of costly future medical care to help you long term. For all of these reasons, it is extremely important for a person suffering a traumatic brain injury caused by another’s negligence to consider pursuing a personal injury case to get all of the compensation they deserve.
If you or someone close to you has recently suffered from a traumatic brain injury caused by someone else’s negligence, the lawyers at Glass & Robson are here to support you. Our personal injury attorneys have extensive experience advocating for victims of traumatic brain injuries and fight hard to recover the compensation our clients deserve. By hiring Glass & Robson, you can focus on recovery and healing while we focus on your case. Please schedule a consultation with us today to discuss your potential case.