Know What's What

For an injury to be considered catastrophic, it must occur without any warning. It must also disrupt your life is some way, whether by inhibiting you from working a full-time job or by keeping you from experiencing your life in the way you had previous to the injury. It takes a lot to manage this kind of injury. It often takes several health care professionals and experts to tend to the injured as they go from the hospital to rehab and back into their community and home.

The financial fallout from a catastrophic injury makes essential the careful valuation of the claim by an experienced personal injury attorney working with economic and vocational specialists, life care planning specialists, and specialists in rehabilitation medicine.

The goal of an attorney handling these matters is simple: to secure for the client the Best Possible Future.

Paralysis is a major type of catastrophic injury.

Definition: “Complete loss of strength to an affected limb or muscle group.”

Normal muscle function requires unbroken nerve connection from the brain to a particular muscle. Damage at any point along this path reduces the brain’s ability to move a muscle and may cause muscle weakness. Complete loss of the nerve prevents movement and is called paralysis.

Initial slight weak can sometimes lead to paralysis. And, sometimes totally paralyzed limbs can regain complete strength.

It is possible for a single muscle to become paralyzed but it is much more common for an entire body region to become paralyzed.

Quadriplegia occurs once the arms, legs, and chest have all become paralyzed.

Paraplegia is when both legs, but not arms, are paralyzed. Paraplegia can also affect the chest.

Hemiplegia is the paralysis of only half the body. Right or Left.

Spinal cord or brain damage and the leading cause of most paralysis cases.

Damage to the brain may come from a stroke, tumor, certain diseases and a fall or blow to the head. – Damage to the spinal cord is most often caused by trauma, such as a fall or car accident. There may be other causes, such as a herniated disc or various diseases or conditions. The type of paralysis may give important clues to its origin. Paraplegia, or paralysis of the legs, occurs after damage to the lower spinal cord, and quadriplegia occurs after injury to the upper spinal cord, at the shoulders or higher. Spinal cord damage too high on the neck will affect the nerves serving the lungs and heart paralyzing the muscles that circulate blood and cause breathing, resulting in death.

Some paralysis is treatable but not all. The only way known to treat paralysis is repairing the underlying nerves. This is done through the rehabilitation process which includes, physical therapy for rebuilding muscles, occupational therapy to help develop the skills again to perform everyday tasks such as bathing or getting clothed. Also included is respiratory therapy to help with breathing.

Legal consequences: In a lawsuit from an accident causing paralysis, an injury attorney may have to consult many of these specialized experts, in addition to medical doctors, to best understand what the future holds for a paralyzed accident victim and how best to present that person’s claim to a jury.

If the injury causes the injury to be unable to earn a living, then Medicare or Medicaid come into play. Most times, private insurance or Workers Comp will take care of this.