Car accident injuries can range immensely, from slight bruises and abrasions to broken and severed limbs. However, one of the most common and most easily missed injuries commonly suffered in a car accident is a mild traumatic brain injury (TBI).
Don’t be fooled by its name — a mild TBI is often a very serious injury. Unfortunately, many individuals suffer mild TBIs that remain undiagnosed until the symptoms become a major problem and threaten to derail their career and personal life.
If you recently experienced a car accident, be sure that you received proper medical treatment to identify any injury to your brain. Otherwise, you may be in for a very difficult year that is difficult to explain to your employer and family.
Mild TBIs express many symptoms
When you experience a car accident, it is common to suffer a blow to the head. In many cases, you may not even realize that it happened, especially if you have difficulty remembering the event.
“Mild TBI” may sound like a slight injury because the word “mild” is in the title, but this is far from the truth. The symptoms of the injury are widespread and can last for up to a year. Without proper diagnosis and treatment, you may see you life fall to pieces before you heal fully.
Your symptoms may be fairly easy to pinpoint, such as ongoing headaches and nausea and even seizures. If any of these symptoms were not part of your daily life prior to the accident, connecting the dots is pretty straightforward.
However, not all of the symptoms are so visible or tangible. For instance, a mild TBI may cause you to have sluggish, unclear thoughts, or experience great difficulty concentrating. When you do try to concentrate on simple tasks, you may find that you are quite irritable, much more than you were prior to the accident.
Furthermore, a mild TBI can lead to great difficulty understanding other people when they speak, or misinterpreting the things you read. You may feel as if some of your brain’s capacity to understand context has suddenly vanished, leading to constant miscommunication with your coworkers and family.
You may also experience some changes in your personality or even some of your senses, such as how you smell and taste. You may also find that handwriting is difficult or illegible.
While these problems all seem like small potatoes at first, when they pile on top of each other, they become a huge problem — especially if they persist for up to a year.
If you have any reason at all to believe that you suffered a blow to the head in your car accident, seek professional medical attention immediately. Should you find that you did indeed suffer a mild TBI (or more serious injury, for that matter), reach out to an attorney as soon as possible.
Proper legal help charts a clear path to recovery
With legal counsel who understands the nuances of personal injury law in New York, you can explore all your options for fair compensation and fair treatment. An experienced personal injury attorney will fight tirelessly to help you receive justice while protecting your rights.