Brain injuries can be life-changing.

Before tackling liability or damages, read this.

Understanding Common Brain Injuries

Medical-legal relevance and common attorney questions are addressed. This article begins with medical-legal considerations before diving into discuss common head injuries. 

Civil Litigation

How does a brain injury impact civil damages? Sometimes not at all. On the other hand, a person might be unable to work, attend school, or maintain relationships if they have suffered certain types of brain injuries or permanent brain damage. These are factors in evaluating damages.

The expert witness who is experienced in assessing brain damage in the context of damages, considers complex medical information. The effects of brain damage, depending on recovery, can be severe.

This isn’t only a Plaintiff’s attorney’s consideration. Defense counsel also need an accurate picture of damage, or lack of it, to represent their clients.

Criminal

Would a brain injury cause someone to commit a crime?

It might, but another question is “how does a brain injury affect decisions made about the criminal behavior.”

It depends on factors like these:

• Severity (Concussion? TBI, Brain damage?)
• Symptoms
• Context
• Recovery, or lack of recovery
• Relationship between the injury and behavior
• Executive function: decision-making
• Which part of the brain is impacted

Traumatic brain injury can be relevant to Competency to Stand Trial, NGRI (Criminal Responsibility,) sentence mitigation.

More > “Can a Brain Injury Impact Criminal Behavior?”

Brain Injuries

Brain injuries can result in neurocognitive disorders, mood disorders and psychosis. The injury that resulted in TBI can also cause PTSD, which could be relevant to a criminal case.

Personal Injury and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

Assessing damages in personal injury cases for settlement or trial where TBI may be involved is a consideration for Plaintiff or Defense.

TBI can cause a neurocognitive disorder, which can impact one’s cognition in various domains such as memory, concentration and executive functioning.

TBI can also result in mood disorders such as depression, anxiety disorders and psychosis.

TBI can produce neurological issues like seizures, headaches, speech disorders and inability to walk. It can be accompanied by spinal cord injury (SCI).

What Is Traumatic Brain Injury?

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a type of acquired brain injury. It is brain dysfunction caused by an outside force. TBI can be classified by the biomechanical forces involved. The three types of forces are blunt trauma, penetrating injuries and blast overpressure injury.

Examples of blunt trauma include motor vehicle accidents (MVAs), falls and assault. Penetrating injuries include gunshot wounds (GSW) and injuries with sharp objects such as knives and arrows. Blast injuries include improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and dynamite. Sometimes one can encounter multiple types of injury. For example, in a bomb blast, there could be the initial blast injury, penetrating injury from shrapnel and blunt injury from a blast wave causing a fall.

What Is a Concussion?

A concussion is a mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI). It results from a direct impact to the head or a violent shaking of the head and body. It may be accompanied by a loss of consciousness (LOC) and post-traumatic amnesia (PTA).

There is no specific treatment for concussion. Rest and activity restriction are recommended to allow the brain to recover. Medications can help alleviate symptoms of post-concussive syndrome (PCS).

What Is Post-Concussive Syndrome?

Post-concussive syndrome (PCS) is a disorder in which various symptoms last for weeks and sometimes months after the injury that caused the concussion. Typically, the symptoms occur within the first 7 to 10 days and resolve within 3 months. Sometimes, they can persist for a year or more.

Symptoms can include:

• Diminished concentration and memory
• Ringing in the ears (tinnitus)
• Blurry vision
• Noise sensitivity
• Light sensitivity (photophobia)
• Decreases in taste and smell

What Is “Acquired Brain Injury?”

Acquired brain injury (ABI) can be the result of TBI. It is defined by the World Health Organization as brain damage “which occurs after birth and is not related to a congenital or a degenerative disease.” ABI can be the result of TBI or non-traumatic causes such as a stroke, brain tumor, brain hemorrhage or other causes.