Traumatic Brain Injury Lawyer

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) contributes to more than 50,000 deaths in the United States each year. The injury is caused by a bump or blow to the head or a penetrating head injury that disrupts the normal function of the brain. In “severe” cases, where one suffers a fractured skull, enters a coma or has a brain bleed, the diagnosis can be obvious.

In the event you have been in an accident and are experiencing TBI symptoms, you may have a brain injury. Our personal injury attorneys have handled many TBI cases, and last year Sakkas, Cahn & Weiss received a 2014 Litigator Award from the Trial Lawyers Board of Regents for extraordinary achievement in TBI litigation.

We are up-to-date on the best tests, understand the medicine, know the right doctors to help you and know the proper techniques for presenting the injury to a jury at trial.

This Injury Often Goes Undiagnosed

Alternatively, many traumatic brain injury cases are listed as “mild” to “moderate”, and despite their description, these cases are as equally devastating as the “severe” cases. They affect cognitive and emotional abilities, and if left untreated these symptoms can intensify over time. This could prevent someone from doing their job, caring for their children or dealing with day-to-day activities. Sadly, the “mild” injury often goes undiagnosed or misdiagnosed because the injury commonly avoids detection on our most sophisticated hospital imaging equipment.

About 80 percent of these injuries are caused by falls, motor vehicle accidents and blunt trauma. When the victim is brought to the hospital, the doctors at the emergency room don’t see the injury on the film studies and move on to other injuries caused in your accident. As a result, they don’t reference “TBI” in your medical chart and when your primary physician or even a specialist later examines you, they are unaware of the injury and begin to consider alternatives. That leads to a different problem — the victim gets called a malingerer or is deemed to have a mental illness.

Common Symptoms Of TBI

The brain is delicate — it has the consistency of Jell-O. When the skull moves around violently, as from whiplash in a car accident, the brain bounces against the skull. That causes bruising in the tissue, and because different portions of the brain control different functions in the body, the location of the injury often coincides with the later-developed symptoms.

Primary symptoms associated with the diagnosis of a TBI are disorientation, confusion, amnesia near the time of the accident and neuropsychological problems. The broader symptomology supports an extensive list and symptoms vary in every victim:

• Cognitive/mental — Difficulty in finding the right words to use, memory loss, obsessive compulsive disorder traits, loss of communication skills, slower processing speed, loss of attention or concentration, disorientation
• Physical — Fatigue, dizziness, numbness in fingers or toes, drooped eyelid, headaches, change in sleep patterns
• Sensory — Sensitivity to light, blurry vision, change in taste or smell, ear ringing, nausea
• Emotional — Depression, anxiety, personality changes, crying, mood swings

For a free consultation about your potential personal injury case, call our New York law firm at 212-571-7171. You can also reach us by email.