Coughlin & Gerhart LLP

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Understanding the challenges posed by a brain injury

On Behalf of | Dec 19, 2018 | Brain Injury

Some car accident victims in New York suffer injuries that are not obvious for all to see, often making it more challenging for the victims. People might understand the trauma when they look at someone struggling to move about with a leg in a cast, but they might have no sympathy or empathy for one who suffered a brain injury because they cannot see it. The same applies to family and friends who are aware of the injury but without an understanding of the victim’s suffering.

Brain injuries cause different problems for different people, depending on which part of the brain is damaged. It affects each person in unique ways, and even connecting with other brain injury victims might not be helpful. A significant challenge is trying to cope with previously regular daily activities that have become challenges. Furthermore, symptoms can develop over time, and a doctor may not be able to predict unanticipated behavioral or cognitive changes that might develop in the future.

In many cases, caregivers to brain injury victims are also their loved ones, and taking on that responsibility could have adverse effects on the caregivers as well. Understanding the changes that take place in the brain — either as it heals or as it deteriorates — is challenging. Relationships with family, friends and colleagues can suffer, and all because it is so difficult to understand something of which so little is known.

Further challenges come with putting a monetary value to past and future expenses for medical and therapeutic services along with already lost income and the loss of potential future earnings. This is where the skills of a personal injury attorney who has experience in fighting for the rights of brain injury victims come in. Having a lawyer to advocate for him or her throughout a civil lawsuit in New York can improve the chances of securing maximum recovery of financial and emotional damages.

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