If you have been in any sort of accident in which you sustained a traumatic brain injury, or TBI, beside the immediate physical effects that the accident can do to your body, there can also be long-lasting physical, mental and emotional effects that are residual as well. At this point in time, there is a great deal of awareness of TBIs that the person sustained as a result of a car accident or some sort of collision while playing sports.
TBIs used to be considered the “silent epidemic in the 1980s but the public understands the disease more realistically now. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the general public has become more tolerant of the symptoms of the disease and the circle of understanding is expanding on a daily basis. Also, they never seemed to acquire more than a superficial understanding of what TBI is and how its symptoms manifest.
People have a difficult time believing that the mental symptoms are the result of the TBI
Because not all of the symptoms of TBI are physical, some people have a difficult time really embracing that the source of the disease is a physical impact to the head and brain. The fact is that TBI is a serious condition and it is essential that the person who has sustained a head injury and has developed a TBI as a result should get treated as soon as possible.
TBIs can be mild and they can be much more severe. Those who are unfortunate enough to have a serious TBI can have their understanding and emotions affected in many different ways. The more serious and numerous a person’s injuries initially, the longer the effects may last.
Exactly what is a TBI?
A TBI is a change in the person’s brain function that has been caused by an outside force. Examples of outside forces are the person being hit in the head by an object, the head being jarred forward or backward or some sort of explosion or blast. With a TBI, the frontal lobes of the brain have been injured. That can occur no matter where on the head the impact occurred.
TBIs are more common than you may realize. According to reports, one in five adults have had a TBI in which they lost consciousness. One in 20 have had a moderate or severe TBI that probably left residual effects and they were possibly permanently disabled. According to statistics, approximately 1.1% of U.S. adults have become permanently disabled as a result of a TBI.
Solid advice from a Santa Rosa attorney
If you have experienced a traumatic brain injury, it is essential that you get help right away. If your TBI was the result of an accident in which another person was negligent, the experienced advice of a California attorney may make a tremendous difference to your case. Your attorney can walk you through the process and can help you to protect your rights so that you can hopefully get the compensation that you need and that you deserve so that you can get back to the life that you should have and that you had before the accident occurred in the first place.