Brain and Spinal Cord Injuries

Pennsylvania Brain Injury Attorneys

Have you or a family member suffered a traumatic Brain injury or Spinal Cord Injury due to someone else's negligence?  You are not alone. Each year in the United States over 1.5 million people suffer from traumatic brain injuries and approximately 50,000 of these brain injuries result in death.

A traumatic brain injury usually occurs when a person's head strikes an object - or an object strikes a person's head - resulting in serious brain damage. Most attorneys don't realize that you can suffer a brain injury, even if nothing strikes your head, from the force of a crash or other impact causing damage to the cells in your brain. Some common causes of brain injury include auto accidents, truck crashes, motorcycle wrecks, bus accidents, sports injuries, and slip-and-fall accidents. We have a great deal of experience helping people who have suffered these injuries. We want to help you too.

Because they are not tested in the emergency room, people involved in car wrecks often suffer from traumatic brain injuries that go undiagnosed. If you suffer from symptoms like headache, irritability, change in personality, and memory problems after a car crash, we can refer you to medical professionals who specialize in diagnosing and treating brain injuries.

Brain and spinal cord injuries can be devastating. We work with prominent, respected doctors (neurosurgeons, neurologists, neurophysiologists, neuropsychologists, etc.) to ensure that our clients' injuries are fully evaluated, treated, and assessed.

Our goal is to maximize your physical recovery from serious injuries and maximize your compensation. If you or a family member has a brain or spinal cord injury, contact us at our Pittsburgh office for a free confidential appointment to determine how we can help you and your family.

We are here to assist you in obtaining the maximum compensation due to you under the law for your brain injury, spinal cord injury, or other catastrophic injury. The two major types of brain injuries are:

• Open Head Brain Injury, which occurs when a foreign object penetrates the skull and punctures the brain, making it susceptible to infection. Open head brain injuries typically cause impairment to the functions that the injured part of the brain controls. Like other brain injuries, open head injuries must be treated immediately.
• Closed Head Brain Injury, which occurs when there is trauma to the brain that does not result in a skull fracture. Closed head injuries are somewhat difficult to diagnose because there may be no physical signs of injury. Like other brain injuries, closed head injuries must be treated immediately.

What are the symptoms of a brain injury?

Some of the most common symptoms of a brain injury include:

There are many other symptoms that may occur after brain injury. The type of symptoms displayed will generally depend on the area of the brain which has been injured. Below is a list of possible symptoms which can arise from damage to specific areas of the brain:

Frontal Lobe: Forehead

• Loss of simple movement of various body parts (paralysis)
• Inability to plan a sequence of complex movements needed to complete multi-stepped tasks, such as making coffee (sequencing)
• Loss of spontaneity in interacting with others
• Loss of flexibility in thinking
• Persistence of a single thought (perseveration)
• Inability to focus on task
• Mood changes (emotionally labile)
• Changes in social behavior
• Changes in personality
• Difficulty with problem solving
• Inability to express language (Broca's Aphasia)

Parietal Lobe: near the back and top of the head

• Inability to attend to more than one object at a time
• Inability to name an object (anomia)
• Inability to locate the words for writing (agraphia)
• Problems with reading (alexia)
• Difficulty with drawing objects
• Difficulty in distinguishing left from right
• Difficulty with doing mathematics (dyscalculia)
• Lack of awareness of certain body parts and/or surrounding space (apraxia) that leads to difficulties in self-care
• Inability to focus visual attention
• Difficulty with eye and hand coordination

Occipital Lobes: most posterior, at the back of the head

• Defects in vision (visual field cuts)
• Difficulty with locating objects in environment
• Difficulty with identifying colors (color agnosia)
• Production of hallucinations
• Visual illusions - inaccurately seeing objects
• Word blindness - inability to recognize words
• Difficulty in recognizing drawn objects
• Inability to recognize the movement of object (movement agnosia)
• Difficulties with reading and writing

Temporal Lobes: side of head above ears

• Difficulty in recognizing faces (prosopagnosia)
• Difficulty in understanding spoken words (Wernicke's Aphasia)
• Disturbance with selective attention to what we see and hear
• Difficulty with identification of, and verbalization about objects
• Short term memory loss
• Interference with long term memory
• Increased and decreased interest in sexual behavior
• Inability to categorize objects
• Persistent talking
• Increased aggressive behavior

Brain Stem: deep within the brain

• Decreased vital capacity in breathing, important for speech
• Difficulty swallowing food and water (dysphagia)
• Difficulty with organization/perception of the environment
• Problems with balance and movement
• Dizziness and nausea (vertigo)
• Sleeping difficulties (insomnia, sleep apnea)

Cerebellum: base of the skull

• Loss of ability to coordinate fine movements
• Loss of ability to walk
• Inability to reach out and grab objects
• Tremors
• Dizziness (vertigo)
• Slurred speech
• Inability to make rapid movements

Do you have a traumatic brain injury claim caused by the carelessness of another person?

Call Shenderovich, Shenderovich and Fishman for help today.

Do not just take the first offer of settlement from the insurance company if it doesn't fully compensate you for your loss and protect you from future complications. It is critical that brain and spinal cord injuries be evaluated by expert professionals who will assess the economic impact of the injury over your entire lifetime before a settlement value can be estimated.

Insurance companies will not inform you of this since it is in their best interest to pay you as little as possible to settle your claim. Once you settle a claim, you will not be allowed to go back and request additional compensation if you discover that your injuries are more severe than you realized.

Protecting your rights is important to us. That is the reason we cover all expenses until the end of a case. Then we are paid a portion of the funds recovered. If we are unable to recover compensation, you do not owe us a fee. This is called a contingency fee arrangement and is common among Pittsburgh personal injury attorneys.

Spinal Cord Injuries

Each year in the United States there are over 11,000 new cases of spinal cord injury resulting in paralysis. Of that number, approximately 52% of individuals are considered paraplegic, while 47% are considered quadriplegic.

Paralysis is a condition in which the arms, legs, or both no longer respond to messages sent from the brain. There are two main types of paralysis: paraplegia and quadriplegia. Both paraplegia and quadriplegia are caused by injury or disease affecting the spinal cord.

Common Reasons for Spinal Cord Injuries

• Vehicular accidents 37%
• Violence 28%
• Falls 21%
• Sports-related 6%
• Other 8%

If you or a loved one have been involved in an accident and since developed a spinal cord injury or have paraplegia or quadriplegia, contact us immediately. You may be entitled to compensation, and we can help. You need smart, aggressive attorneys to make sure that your rights will be protected and respected.

What is Paraplegia?

Paraplegia is permanent paralysis of the lower body, including the legs and sometimes the chest. Paraplegia is caused by disease or injury to the spinal cord below the neck, at the lumbar or thoracic levels of the spine.

What is Quadriplegia?

Quadriplegia, also known as tetraplegia, is permanent paralysis of the lower and upper body. Quadriplegia is caused by disease or injury to the cervical section of the spinal cord (in the neck).

What types of spinal cord injuries lead to paralysis?

There are three types of spinal cord injuries that can lead to paralysis:

• Contusion which is the result of a direct blow to the spinal cord, causing swelling and excess pressure that damages the spinal column and nerves.
• Compression, which occurs when the spinal cord compresses in a violent manner (as in an auto accident), causing swelling and excess pressure that damages the spinal column and nerves.
• Direct injury, which occurs when bone or metal cuts the spinal cord, leading to damaged nerves.

Pittsburgh Pennsylvania lawyers of Shenderovich, Shenderovich and Fishman know this area of the law, and are ready to help!

Contact our personal injury attorneys so that we can make sure your rights are protected and respected.

We will make sure that your rights are protected and respected.

412.391.7610

Or

888.98.TWINS

Other Areas of Law Practice: Car Accidents, Motorcycle Accidents, Drunk Driver Accidents, Spinal Cord and Brain Injuries, Wrongful and Accidental Death, Defective Products, Medical Malpractice, Legal Malpractice, Nursing Home Negligence and Abuse, Slip and Fall Personal Injuries, Dog Bite Injuries, Injuries to Children, Pain and Suffering, and Civil Rights Litigation.