What Your Personal Injury Lawyer Must Know About "Mild" Traumatic Brain Injury

An attorney representing a client with "mild" traumatic brain injury must know the seriousness and far-reaching consequences related to this condition. There is nothing “mild” about a mild brain injury. 

He/she must be versed in the medical literature and must devote the time and attention to properly represent the brain injury survivor.  

He or she must know that a concussion is a brain injury. 

He/she must know that a person can have a serious, permanent and disabling brain injury, even though: 

1. The person is not “knocked out” or unconscious at the scene of the accident. 
2. The person may be walking, talking and even exchanging his or her driver's license at the scene of the accident.   
3. The person did not sustain any broken bones or skull damage in the accident. 
4. A person need not strike their head to sustain a brain injury. 
5. The person may have a negative MRI, CT scan, EEG and all other tests. 
6. The defense doctor, or insurance company doctor, usually a neuropsychologist or neurologist, will find that the person sustained no brain damage.  
7. Even a low-speed crash can exert enough force on the brain to cause a brain injury. 
8. Delay in diagnosing the brain injury is not the patient's fault but may be due to the   lack of education on this subject by the medical community. 
9. A victim of brain injury may be a poor historian of what happened.  
10. The patient only related two or three problems following the accident and family members and close friends relate twenty or thirty problems including personality changes. 
11. The person continued with his or her employment, but if he is given new responsibility, promoted, transferred to another job or obtains new employment, he or she may have tremendous difficulty and get fired. 
12. The term "post-concussion syndrome" refers to difficulties caused by a traumatic brain injury. 
13. Attention and concentration difficulties may mean that the person suffered damage to the frontal lobe of the brain. 
14. Personality changes may mean that the person suffered damage to the frontal lobe of the brain. 
15. New symptoms have appeared since the accident and other symptoms have disappeared. 
16. The person has a perfect gross neurological exam, since this exam does not exam the  neuro psychological deficits associated with traumatic brain injury. 
17. The diagnosis of cognitive brain damage following a neuro psychological examination is based on the entire battery of tests and the entire examination and not the patient's answer to one sub test. 

All too often, people suffering "mild" brain injury are not properly compensated because their attorneys did not understand the seriousness and far-reaching consequences of this devastating condition. 

MICHAEL V. KAPLEN, is past president of the Brain Injury Association of New York State.  SHANA DE CARO is past chair of the Brain Injury Association of America.  They each have been chosen by their colleagues to chair the prestigious American Association of Justice Traumatic Brain Injury Litigation Group. They have lectured to trial lawyers, brain injury groups, support groups and medical professionals throughout the country.  De Caro & Kaplen, LLP is a New York based personal injury law firm with a specialty in representing individuals with  brain injuries caused by Motor Vehicle Collisions, Unsafe Construction Sites, dangerous buildings, and Medical Malpractice.