ORANGE COUNTY BRAIN INJURY LAWYER

Common Type Of Brain Injuries

TBIs result from head injuries, including bumps, blows, blunt force trauma, and penetrating trauma. The impact jars the brain within the skull, causing bruising, bleeding, and the shearing of nerve fibers.

As with other body parts, the brain swells in response to injury. Unlike other parts of the body, the skull tightly contains the brain, leaving little room for expansion without more bleeding and lost blood circulation. Swelling starves parts of the brain of oxygen. Without prompt intervention, cells within the oxygen-deprived parts of the brain die. 

Common Causes Of Brain Injuries

TBI has no limit on the number of causes, but the most common include the following:

Motor Vehicle Accidents 

Motor vehicle accidents cause about 1/3 of TBI in the U.S. This statistic includes car-, motorcycle-, bike-, scooter-, and truck crashes. From a legal standpoint, establishing degrees of fault is key to winning just compensation.

Falls 

Falls rank as the #1 cause of TBI in the United States. Slip-and-fall accidents frequently occur in nursing homes, hospitals, workplaces, construction sites, shopping malls, and retail stores. Often, courts rule commercial property owners at fault because they have a duty of care to ensure the safety of people on the property.

For instance, a jury may hold a nursing home at fault for an employee’s neglect to safeguard a patient; likewise, a shopper at a retail store can bring suit against the owner if they slipped on spilled liquid.

Violence

Assaults, whether with fists or weapons, frequently result in TBI. While such a violent offender likely faces criminal prosecution, a conviction is unnecessary to win a personal injury case in California. 

Sports-Related Injuries 

Few people participate in sports expecting an injury as severe as TBI. However, any contact sport comes with a substantial risk of TBI. For evidence, consider Muhammad Ali, who suffered pugilist Parkinsons, and NFL players, many of whom sustained chronic traumatic encephalopathy. But any sport, such as biking, rock climbing, and swimming, can result in TBI. The defense may aver that the plaintiff signed a waiver, but courts do not automatically grant a dismissal based on them. 

A waiver cannot excuse negligence.

Medical Negligence

A blow to the head isn’t the only cause of TBI. If oxygen is cut off for too long, even when a person is sedated in a hospital bed, TBI happens. For instance, if a patient coded after being administered the wrong medication and suffered TBI, the result should be a medical malpractice lawsuit.  

Effects of Brain Injury

Symptoms can be mild and short-lasting, such as after a concussion. In other cases, TBI lasts months, years, or a lifetime. When it becomes chronic, victims report the following: 

• Unclear thoughts
• Difficulty remembering new information
• Headaches, vision problems, and dizziness
• Depression, anxiety, and anger
• Sleeping more or less than usual

Sufferers of long-term TBI may need assistance with daily tasks for years or life. They often have difficulty forming new memories, may forget past events, lose reasoning skills, struggle to regulate emotions, and undergo personality changes.

Treatment for Traumatic Brain Injury

While a mild concussion may require an ER visit but no further treatments, long-lasting and severe TBI requires substantial rehabilitation that produces mixed results.

To start, a therapist works with patients to help them focus on regaining lost cognitive skills, such as reestablishing physical orientation, speech therapy, and cognitive exercises. Generally, long-term rehab is required, and severe cases may result in a permanent assisted living situation. Specialists who treat TBI include speech-language pathologists, physical therapists, occupational therapists, and neuropsychologists. Their goal is to restore the highest level of independence and functioning possible.