Brain and Spinal Injury

The burdens of brain injury: emotional and financial

For doctors and medical professionals, the human mind is the final frontier. Understanding how a healthy brain functions and performs remains a daunting challenge to science today. When someone suffers a traumatic brain injury (also known as a TBI), mapping out a clear road to recovery requires the care and consultation of doctors and specialists with years of knowledge and experience working with the latest medical progress in brain injury care. Even when the leading medical experts are involved, trial, error and guesswork often play a large part in diagnosing the process and extent of recovery. But while full recovery from a brain injury is not always possible, we know that the road to recovery is never a dead end. Another chance is always possible for traumatic brain injury survivors, provided the survivors have the love and care of their families — and the financial resources that the best professional care requires.

The latter, financial care, is where you may need an attorney’s help. Insurance companies and the negligent and careless parties who bear responsibility for a traumatic brain injury never make it easy for brain injury survivors or their families, no matter how egregious their liability may be. Rather than contributing to the vision of hope and perseverance so crucial to the recovery process, insurance companies invariably try to darken hope through delay, deceit and intimidation. When brain injury survivors and their families attempt to get the financial help they expect, they often find that the limitless resources of insurance companies are closed off to them. Sadly, so are their chances of recovery.

Ensuring that brain injury survivors can afford the second chance they deserve is what a good brain injury attorney can accomplish, and Stephen M. Smith, Esq. is among Virginia and America’s very best. Few attorneys can unveil before a jury the mysteries of brain injury and complexities of brain injury law as effectively as Stephen. With more than 36 years of experience in traumatic brain injury litigation, Stephen Smith has become a nationally recognized expert in traumatic brain injury litigation and has prosecuted brain injury lawsuits across the United States and throughout the world. Stephen Smith won the largest mild traumatic brain injury verdict ever awarded in the world for one of his clients.

Stephen Smith and Traumatic Brain Injury: An Attorney with the Larger Picture in Mind

Unlike other injuries, the full impact and extent of a traumatic brain injury can require years to determine. Traumatic brain and head injuries can result in a vast range of medical care and needs, from mild cases – such as a closed head injury in which the survivor appears and behaves normally – to severe cases, when the survivor requires life-long round-the-clock care from an assortment of health care professionals.

Brain injuries often happen as the result of car accidents and motorcycle accidents, but can also be a result of household accidents involving defective products, pool accidents, and boating and sporting accidents. They can also occur in conjunction with spinal cord injuries and neck injuries, and other injuries that are governed under personal injury law. While many brain injuries occur through violent falls or high-speed impact, you can also acquire a traumatic brain injury even without striking your head, such as through whiplash or other acceleration/deceleration injury.

The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke defines a traumatic brain injury as an injury that occurs when a sudden physical assault on the head causes damage to the brain. The damage can be focal, confined to one area of the brain, or diffuse, involving more than one area of the brain. Traumatic brain injury can result from a closed head injury or a penetrating head injury.

Symptoms of a traumatic brain injury may include:

• Headache
• Nausea
• Confusion or other cognitive problems
• A change in personality
• Depression
• Irritability
• Severe vision problems
• Other emotional and behavioral problems

Some people may have seizures as a result of a traumatic brain injury. More severe injuries can result in coma and other conditions that require hospitalization and long-term care.

A critical part of Stephen Smith’s success as a brain injury attorney resides in his regular contact with and support of traumatic brain injury groups and associations throughout the nation. He recognizes that his clients and their families are facing life-long challenges as the result of a traumatic brain injury, challenges that no amount of money can cure. While the legal services of Stephen Smith are designed to ensure that the enormous financial burdens of a traumatic brain injury are no longer concerns for his clients, he always stresses the importance of becoming involved with the community of those suffering from traumatic brain injury and their families. Throughout this site, we provide links to important sites that may be of help to you during the many emotional trials ahead. Please review them, and contact Stephen Smith of the Brain Injury Law Center if you need a point in the right direction, he welcomes your email or phone call.