North Carolina Injury Lawyer Blog

We all know that suffering from a North Carolina traumatic brain injury can be devastating for the victim and family members. Depending on the degree of seriousness of the TBI, a person living with a brain injury may experience memory problems, confusion, communication difficulties, attention problems, speech problems, sensory impairment, vision problems, hearing difficulties, a decreased sense of smell, a decreased sense of taste, paralysis, chronic pain, spasticity, bowel problems, aggressiveness, depression, or personality changes. Now, new research has shown that a traumatic brain injury can also cause problems with a person’s ability to process emotions.

This impairment can make recovery more difficult and cause relationship problems for the TBI patient. According to head injury specialist Professor Roger Wood from the University of Swansea, family members reported that following a TBI accident, the patient exhibited a lack of love or warmth that strained their relationships.

Wood and colleague Clair Williams asked TBI patients to fill out a neuropsychological test questionnaire that helps identify who has low empathy. Williams and Wood found that TBI patients generally scored low results for empathy. They also found that TBI patients have a harder time identifying not just what someone they saw in a video or photograph might be feeling, but also they were more likely to have problems describing and identifying their own feelings.

Sustaining a traumatic brain injury is devastating enough without compounding its effects with a decreased ability to feel and empathize. TBI victims and their families lose so much in terms of what their lives and experiences with one another would otherwise have been like if only the brain injury accident never happened.

Our Charlotte, North Carolina traumatic brain injury attorneys represent victims and their families with claims against the parties responsible for causing the TBI. Traumatic brain injuries can occur during car crashes, truck accidents, motorcycle collisions, pedestrian accidents, slip and fall accidents, or as a result of medical malpractice or some other type of negligence.

Traumatic Brain Injury leads to problems with emotional processing, Psychology Today, January 3, 2010

Inability to empathize following traumatic brain injury, Cambridge Journals

Related Web Resource:
Traumatic Brain Injury, MedlinePlus

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In Durham County, the parents of Lucas Lear are suing Chapel Hill daycare operator Cheryl McAdoo Alston for the 7-month-old's permanent traumatic brain injury. The North Carolina injuries to minor complaint accuses Alston of injuring the boy, who was attending her Cheryl's Infant and Toddler Preschool, and neglecting to get him medical care in a timely manner after she allegedly hurt him. The Lears are seeking over $10,000 in damages for their son’s personal injury.

A North Carolina traumatic brain injury lawsuit is not the only legal woe that Alston must contend with. She was arrested last week for allegedly shaking Lucas so violently that now, more than two months after the injury, Lucas is under close observation at UNC Hospital’s neonatal unit. The Lears say that their son is impaired for life, and it is too soon to tell whether he will be able to walk or talk normally again.

Alston, who has spent most of her life taking care of babies, has lost her license to run her at-home day care, and an Orange County, North Carolina judge has ordered the 53-year-old woman to stay away from kids.

Alston claims that she went to go wash her hands after putting Lucas in a car seat. When she returned, he wasn’t responding. She says she grabbed the baby out of the seat and his head fell back when she tried to press him into her shoulder. Lucas’s father, Chris Lear, arrived at the day care center at this time.

Alston says she would never hurt a child. However, this is not the first time that social workers have questioned the care that Alston provides at her day care center.

In April 2008, North Carolina investigators interviewed Alston about another child under her charge who sustained injuries. The child’s guardian was worried that Alston had failed to properly supervise the boy and that another child might have fallen on him.

Traumatic Brain Injuries
Traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) are usually caused by a jolt or blow to the head or an injury that is penetrating enough that the brain’s functioning is disrupted. Depending on the severity of the TBI, the injury can be mild, resulting in temporary impairment, or severe, resulting in permanent or fatal brain injuries.

Daycare operator sued over abuse, ABC Local, July 21, 2009

Day care operator charged with injuring baby, NewsObserver.com, July 22, 2009

Related Web Resources:
Traumatic Brain Injury, CDC

Abusive Head Trauma, KidsHealth.org