Of all potential bodily injuries, among the worst are injuries that involve the brain. The brain is responsible for controlling all of the body’s functions and involuntary responses through signals sent by the spinal cord to its various organs, structures, and systems.
Unfortunately, as important as the brain is to survive and function, it only has a limited ability to heal after an injury. This often means that an individual who has suffered a traumatic brain injury will likely acquire permanent deficits because of the injury. It also means that the injured individual is at high risk of suffering complications, including seizures, from the damage.
If you incurred a brain injury due to the careless or reckless actions of someone else, and you’re now suffering from seizures or other symptoms, you can pursue compensation for your medical expenses and the impact your injury and subsequent complications had on your life. An experienced brain injury lawyer can help you understand this legal process.
A traumatic brain injury is an injury to the brain that is generally caused by a sudden blow or jolt to the head or body. The injury can involve an object penetrating the thick protection of the skull, known as a penetrating injury, or the damage may take place within a closed head, caused by the brain violently bumping against the skull.
Brain injuries can result in widely varying deficits, depending on which portion of the brain sustains the initial damage or any subsequent damage that results from one of the many complications that often occurs after this type of injury. Each portion of the brain—known as a lobe—controls different functions of the body.
The lobes, and the functions they’re responsible for, are as follows:
A seizure is a burst of uncontrolled electrical activity that occurs between brain cells. This electrical burst causes temporary abnormalities to the body’s muscle tone and movements, including stiffness, twitching, or limpness. Seizures also cause temporary changes to awareness, behaviors, or sensations. No two seizures are alike, and when it comes to seizures suffered after a brain injury, they are often either a singular event or may become recurring.
Some of the common symptoms of a seizure include:
There are two types of seizures: focal and generalized. Most seizures that occur within the first 24 hours after a traumatic brain injury are generalized as tonic-clonic seizures, which are often referred to as Grand Mal seizures. Seizures that occur after 24 hours are called focal—or partial—seizures, meaning they originate in a single area of the brain.
Seizures are a common complication for individuals who have suffered a brain injury. In fact, seizures occur in up to 50 percent of individuals who have suffered a traumatic brain injury, with seizures being more commonly associated with injuries to specific lobes of the brain, including the frontal and temporal lobes.
Patients may receive medication after a TBI to prevent seizures, which carry a risk and of further damaging an already injured brain.
Seizures most generally occur as the result of scarred tissue in the damaged area of the brain, and the risk of experiencing a seizure increases if any of the following issues are present with the injury:
While anyone can suffer a seizure after a brain injury, those most at risk for developing the complication include young children and elderly individuals.
While experiencing seizures during the first week after a traumatic brain injury is a common complication, for some individuals, seizure activity may continue for months or even years after the injury occurred. These later seizures, occurring more than a week after the injury, are likely to become recurrent. Recurring seizures, regardless of cause, are considered epilepsy. Epilepsy occurring after a traumatic brain injury is known as post-traumatic epilepsy. Traumatic brain injuries are the most common cause of symptomatic epilepsy in young people between the ages of 15 and 24.
Medical professionals generally treat post-traumatic epilepsy with medications known as antiepileptic drugs (AEDs). These drugs, while working to prevent seizures, often have some side effects that can damage an individual’s quality of life, such as fatigue, dizziness, lightheadedness, trembling, double vision, and confusion. If the individual is experiencing seizures that last for longer than five minutes or if the prescribed AED is no longer working to prevent seizures, the individual may need to seek treatment at a specialized epilepsy treatment center.
Treatment at an epilepsy center will allow for more specialized imaging tests to determine the location of the damage that is causing seizures and determine the best treatment options for the patient. Some individuals may require surgery to remove the epileptogenic tissue from the brain. For others, vagus nerve stimulation through an implanted device may prove the most effective. Finally, newer technologies, such as deep brain stimulation, may offer relief to certain individuals.
Brain injuries have a high risk of producing life-altering deficits, including loss of memory, lack of impulse control, the inability to speak or to understand spoken language, and the loss of coordinated movement. Seizures also carry a risk of damage to the brain, particularly if they are recurrent. It may prove difficult to tell which symptoms stem from the brain injury itself, which symptoms come from the seizure, and which symptoms may constitute side effects of the AEDs used to prevent the seizures. These comorbid conditions may affect an injured individual’s treatment options.
The comorbid conditions that commonly are associated with post-traumatic epilepsy include:
Between 25 to 40 percent of people who receive treatment for post-traumatic epilepsy will have no recurrent seizures.
If you suffered a traumatic brain injury with post-traumatic epilepsy, we don’t need to tell you that the effort to determine the proper course of treatment for these conditions is intense, as are the life-altering effects. We do need to tell you about traumatic brain injury lawsuits—the process for obtaining compensation for the expenses and impacts to your quality of life caused by the injury. You file these legal claims in civil court.
The two primary purposes of a traumatic brain injury lawsuit are to (1) determine who was liable for the accident that caused your injuries and (2) prove the expenses and impacts the injury has caused you to endure.
Brain injuries can occur in different types of accidents, such as:
Just as there are many ways that an accident resulting in a brain injury can occur, there are also many potential sources of liability. The at-fault party is liable for the expenses and impacts that you’ve incurred as a result of the incident causing your brain injury.
To prove liability, you must prove:
When talking about your case, you will likely hear the phrase recovery of damages. In the legal arena, damages are compensation for harm done. California allows plaintiffs in traumatic brain injury claims to seek both economic and non-economic damages from liable parties. Economic damages constitute payment for out-of-pocket expenses that you’ve incurred as a result of your injury.
Some common expenses that are included in an economic damages claim include:
Non-economic damages refer to a payment made for quality-of-life impacts that you have incurred from your traumatic brain injury and its complications.
Such impacts in damage claims often include:
Brain Injury Attorney, John Gomez
Call a top brain injury lawyer near you to help you understand this important process of recovering damages related to your brain injury and associated complications. Look for a brain injury lawyer with experience both in the requirements and formalities of this type of case, as well as in the often extreme, life-long challenges brain injury clients and their families may face.
Gomez Trial Attorneys
655 West Broadway, Suite 1700
San Diego, Ca 92101
619-237-3490
John Gomez founded the firm alone in 2005. Today, John acts as President and Lead Trial Attorney. He has been voted by his peers as a top ten San Diego litigator in three separate fields: Personal Injury, Insurance and Corporate Litigation. Since 2000, he has recovered over $800 million in settlements and verdicts for his clients with more than 160 separate recoveries of one million dollars or more. A prolific trial lawyer, John has tried to jury verdict more than 60 separate cases.
no fees unless we recover money on your behalf
No Fees Unless We Recover Money On Your Behalf