How Brain Injuries Can Affect Your Personal Injury Claim?
In a previous article, we wrote about what a brain injury is. Now, we address how suffering from a brain injury can be an obstacle to recovering damages for it.
Although most patients who suffer a brain injury (otherwise known as a concussion) will have spontaneous resolution of symptoms, others may feel its enduring effects for weeks, months, or even years. The constellation of cognitive, physical, behavioural, and emotional symptoms that occur after a concussion is called post-concussive syndrome. When they persist for over three months, it is referred to as persistent post-concussive syndrome. The symptoms can include cognitive deficits in attention or memory, fatigue, sleep disturbance, irritability, headache, dizziness, and apathy or personality changes. This list is, unfortunately, not exhaustive.
Unsurprisingly, these symptoms will affect various facets of your life, such as work, recreational activities, and social interactions. The functional consequences will form part of your personal injury claim. However, difficulties arise when the symptoms themselves create discrepancies or gaps in information used by the defence to minimize your case. This can happen, for example, when you forget to tell your family doctor about health issues you are experiencing due to cognitive deficits, or when your apathy prevents you from putting forth your best effort during neurocognitive testing, leading to invalid results.
Working with a rehabilitation team comprised of a treating neurologist, an occupational therapist, and a rehabilitation support worker can be integral for both your recovery and to help document your symptoms and the effects of those symptoms, which will help reduce the likelihood of the defence questioning the veracity of your complaints.
At Singer Kwinter, we have decades of experience working with accident victims who have sustained traumatic brain injuries. We strive to ensure that you have the proper rehabilitation team in place so that you can focus on your recovery while allowing us to navigate the complexities of your legal case.
