North Carolina Injury Lawyer Blog

According to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, nearly 50% of traumatic brain injury survivors will likely experience depression. This rate is nearly eight times higher than that of the general population. TBI survivors who went into depression following their head trauma reportedly experienced greater pain, mobility problems, and challenges executing their usual responsibilities.

Researchers from the University of Washington studied 559 participants. Each TBI patient was interviewed over the next six months and then again at 8, 10, and 12 months. The study’s findings confirmed that a TBI can cause major depressive disorder.

Our Charlotte, North Carolina traumatic brain injury law firm represents clients who sustained their TBIs that were caused by other parties negligence. Some 1.5 million Americans will sustain a TBI this year.

Some TBI symptoms appear immediately, and others can take days or weeks to develop. While most head trauma side effects will clear up within a year, some 80,000 people a year will be left with permanent, devastating effects. Depending on the kind of TBI and its severity, unconsciousness, dizziness, headaches, lightheadness, confusion, vision problems, fatigue, bad taste in the mouth, sleep pattern changes, ringing in the ears, mood changes, behavioral changes, memory problems, attention problems, vomiting, convulsions, nausea, seizures, slurred speech, extremity-related problems, agitation, confusion, coma, infections, cranial nerve injuries, organ system failure, vascular injuries, damage to cognition, sensory processing, communication, personality changes, and brain death may result from a traumatic brain injury.

Common causes of North Carolina traumatic brain injuries include fall accidents, car crashes, assaults, and getting hit by or striking a hard object.

Traumatic brain injuries linked to depression, Los Angeles Times, May 19, 2010

Traumatic Brain Injury, CDC

Traumatic Brain Injury: Hope Through Research, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke

Journal of the American Medical Association

Continue reading "North Carolina Traumatic Brain Injury Survivors at Greater Risk of Suffering from Depression" »

The Newsobserver.com reports that 37,000 emergency room patients are treated for North Carolina brain injuries each year. The Brain Injury Association of North Carolina calls TBIs a “silent epidemic,” with more people suffering from brain injuries than there are patients diagnosed with breast cancer, multiple sclerosis, and AIDS combined. In the state of North Carolina alone, there are 180,000 brain injury patients—equal to Fayetteville’s entire population.

Many people don’t really understand what a TBI is or how serious the injury can become in certain cases if medical attention isn’t immediately sought. Also, with car crashes and fall accidents as two of the most common causes of traumatic brain injuries, many victims sustained their injuries because another party was negligent. Please do not hesitate to contact our Charlotte, North Carolina brain injury law firm to explore your legal options.

March has been designated Brain Injury Awareness month, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued its latest report on TBI’s called "Traumatic Brain Injury in the United States: Emergency Department Visits, Hospitalizations, and Death.” Among its latest statistics:

• There are approximately 52,000 TBI deaths in the US every year.
• 1.7 million hospital visits are traumatic brain injury-related.
• 75% of brain injuries are considered mild TBIs.
• Older people, above the age of 65, kids, younger than 5, and teens, 15-19, are most at risk of suffering from a TBI.
• Adults, 75 and older, had the highest TBI death and hospitalization rates.
• The leading known causes of TBI’s are falls, motor vehicle crashes, getting struck by or striking an object, and assaults.

Sustaining a serious TBI can prove catastrophic and not to mention devastating for the victim and loved ones. The costs of living with one can be astronomical.

When you look at the most common causes of TBI’s, it is no surprise that many traumatic brain injuries could have been prevented. Contact our Charlotte, North Carolina personal injury law firm to discuss your TBI case.

CDC Study Examines Rising Incidence of TBI, Medpage Today, March 19, 2010

Brain injury alters her life, Newsobserver.com, March 23, 2010

Related Web Resources:
Brain Injury Association of America

Living with a TBI, Brain and Spinal Cord.org

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