An accident at work or on a Louisiana highway can change your life and the lives of your family in the blink of an eye. If your injuries include head trauma, you may be one of hundreds of thousands each year who must face the new reality of a traumatic brain injury that affects every aspect of their lives.
The brain is such an intricate organ that medical science does not fully understand its complexities. What they do know is that the brain controls the rest of the body, and damage to any section of the brain may leave you struggling to use the parts of your body that portion of the brain controls. This can be anything from walking to controlling your emotions. Surviving a traumatic brain injury often means re-learning tasks you have done without a thought for most of your life.
Who can help me?
If you suffer a traumatic brain injury, many factors will determine the level of care you will need in the days, weeks and years afterward. Your age, your overall health, the severity of the injury and the section of your brain that was damaged all affect the kind of rehabilitation your medical team will recommend. Rehabilitation involves numerous specialists who will work with you to help you regain function and independence. Some of those specialized areas include the following:
- Speech pathology
- Physical therapy
- Vocational or occupational rehabilitation
- Behavioral modification therapy
- Cognitive retraining
- Psychiatric counseling
- Neurological analysis
Other individuals may also work with you to help you recover the use of your physical and cognitive skills or who will help you learn new ways to accomplish once-familiar tasks. Of course, any kind of rehabilitation may follow intensive medical treatment, which may include a prolonged hospital stay, surgical procedures and numerous medications. You will likely need extensive screenings and diagnostic tests to pinpoint the level of rehabilitative care you need.
It could be months or longer after your injury before you are ready to begin therapy, and you may require some form of rehabilitation for the rest of your life, depending on the details of your accident. As you can see, the cost of treatment following a brain injury can quickly become a mountain of medical debt. Many whose injuries resulted from a workplace accident or through the negligence of others seek financial compensation with the assistance of a legal professional.
