Brain Injury Lawyer in San Antonio Area

Traumatic Brain Injury or TBI is not a new thing. TBI has been around as long as humans have. However, it’s only recently with high-profile cases of athletes and veterans suffering from TBI that the general public started to gain awareness.

Who Gets TBI Brain Injuries?

TBI’s are an insidious injury. You may go your whole life and not realize you have a TBI. Sometimes you only find out because you start to experience cognitive decline and have a lot of problems someone your age shouldn’t have. We are learning now that even children can suffer from TBIs thanks to sports or rough play.

Causes of TBI Brain Injuries

• Explosions – Proximity can cause unseen injury
• Sports – Not just sports with helmets and pads
• Motorcycle Accidents – Even with helmets, TBI is a real threat
• Car Accidents – The leading cause in America of TBI
• Playgrounds – Rough play as well as falling from unsafe equipment
• Falls – Primary cause of TBI among little children as well as senior citizens
• Assault and Battery – Blunt force trauma to the head can occur with everything from being pushed to the ground to being hit over the head

Brain injuries can come from many places but the signs are not as obvious as other injuries. These can include:

• Vomiting and Nausea
• Loss of Vision
• Drowsiness
• Loss of consciousness
• Numbness
• Confusion
• Severe Headaches
• Slurred Speech
• Weakness in Extremities
• Dizziness

Treatment and Therapy Options For TBIs in San Antonio, TX

Anybody who suffers a TBI because of another party’s negligence needs to understand the treatment options available to them. Treatment and therapy options for TBIs can be very costly and may include psychotherapy and physical therapy, neuropsychological assessments, diagnostic studies, regular office visits with neurologists and other medical specialists, medications to help alleviate the effects of the TBI, speech or occupational therapy, rehabilitation center visits, and day treatment programs.

Concussions

Do as your doctor advises after getting a concussion—typically, that will mean plenty of rest. Steer clear of drugs and alcohol, avoid screens (TV, tablet, phone, laptop), reading, and things like crossword puzzles or other “thinking” games. Concussions that don’t heal properly can cause other problems in the future.

Intracranial Pressure

The brain does not have the space it needs to get swollen when it’s injured because it is fully encased in the skull. If your brain swells after you’ve been in a collision, your medical team may have to drill “relief” holes into the skull. Additionally, a shunt can be used to help drain excess brain fluid.

Blood Clots

Your doctors should check you for blood clots because they can be associated with brain injuries. When the brain bleeds, the blood has nowhere to go, just like the swelling, so it can pool up inside the skull. This pooling of blood can cause further injury and complications.

While it can be difficult to determine the long-term prognosis for a TBI, medical specialists will often look at many important factors to assess the outlook for a brain injury, including the location and size of the trauma to the damaged portions of the brain, the length, and severity of the loss of consciousness, and the victim’s recovery from the TBI, including whether they can return to work, their social integration, and their family interaction. The general rule in these cases is that more severe TBIs result in longer periods of recovery, and many people are never able to return to their original states.

TBIs Are Not Always Immediately Evident

TBIs are not always immediately evident, which makes the need for medical care after any accident so critical because the sooner you can be diagnosed with a TBI, the sooner you will be able to act to recover compensation for your injury. A TBI claim will be under the same statute of limitations as most other injury claims, meaning that action has to be taken within a specified number of years of the date of the accident, not the date you learned you had a TBI.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) notes that older adults are much more likely to be hospitalized and die from TBIs compared to all other age groups, but TBIs can be missed or misdiagnosed in older adults because symptoms of TBI overlap with other kinds of medical conditions that are more common with older adults. It becomes incredibly urgent for older adults to get a proper diagnosis because older adults who are using blood thinners such as anticoagulants like warfarin (Coumadin), rivaroxaban (Xarelto), or apixaban (Eliquis) and antiplatelet medications such as clopidogrel (Plavix), ticagrelor (Brilinta), or acetylsalicylic acid (Aspirin) can increase the risk of bleeding in the brain after a TBI and possibly put a person at risk of more severe injury or death.